NIKKEI VIEW: The Asian American Blog

The new movie “Ninja Assassin” just might spark a new wave of fascination with Asian martial arts, but instead of kung fu, the fad will be for ninjutsu, the art of the ninja warrior.
The film updates the image of the silent, stealthy assassins from Japanese history, and suggests that ninja clans still exist, sending out [...]

[Read more →]

On our recent trip to LA, and a previous trip to San Francisco, I’ve been obsessed with buying various versions of the Maneki Neko, the iconic Japanese cat statues with upraised paw, holding on to a gold coin with the other paw.
“Maneki Neko” translates literally to “welcoming cat,” and its paw beckons to [...]

[Read more →]

Erin and I just spent a great weekend in LA, and all day yesterday was the main event: We attended BANANA, the first-ever gathering of Asian American Pacific Islander bloggers from across the country, and from Canada. It was kind of an ad-hoc event, organized in just two months and a little ragged on the [...]

[Read more →]

It’s not often that we get the chance to see the embryonic stage of a theatrical project, and see how a play is developed. So we were fortunate that our visit to LA to attend the BANANA conference of Asian American bloggers coincided with a free “workshop” performance of a new project being developed by [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s why I like this new Comcast commercial: It’s part of the new trend of showing Asian Americans in ads who are just, well, American, and not so much Asian. They don’t speak with accents and they’re not doing stereotypical stuff like martial arts and tech geekery. Instead, this kid and his dad are watching [...]

[Read more →]

Before the Paramount comedy “The Goods: Live hard, Sell Hard” was released in August, the Asian American blogosphere was abuzz over the extended online trailer for the movie, which showed a disturbing scene with Ken Jeong being beaten up by fellow car salesmen just for being Asian, when star Jeremy Piven gets them all worked [...]

[Read more →]

The San Jose Mercury News, which broke the story several weeks ago of a video that shows San Jose police may have used unnecessary force when officers arrested a San Jose State University student, is now under a darkening cloud of questions about the batons and Taser used to subdue Phuong Ho.
The Mercury News today [...]

[Read more →]

A reader named Robin, who is Japanese American and born in Iowa and bakes apple pies, sent me this email:
“I was wincing yesterday when Martha Stewart asked an asian american woman in the audience (Sumi somethingorother, who baked an apple pie for Martha’s contest) “Where are you from?” and the woman said with no accent [...]

[Read more →]

Asians have a long history of trying to change their appearance, specifically by messing with their eyes. As if it’s not bad enough that so many of us wear glasses (isn’t it enough to have a cool-looking pair?) many Asians — especially women, and apparently more Korean women than other ethnicities — have turned to [...]

[Read more →]

Erin and I attend a lot of banquets. That’s what happens when you’re involved in the local Asian community. I don’t know what it’s like in places like LA or San Francisco, where there are a lot more Asian Americans and a lot more organizations, but there are something 30 Asian community groups in the [...]

[Read more →]

The Asian American community is a diverse world, and not just along purely ethnic lines. There are mixed-race Asian Americans, generations that all have different views on culture and identity, and also a thriving Asian American adoptee community. But adopted kids aren’t always connected to their root heritage.
The New York Times last week ran [...]

[Read more →]

With a week before BANANA, the first-ever gathering of Asian American bloggers, I’ve been thinking about Nikkei View’s role, or how I see my voice as part of the AAPI blogosphere.
The beauty of the Internet and of blogging as an avenue for self-expression, is that we can develop not just one mighty chorus of an [...]

[Read more →]

Huh? Really? This is so wrong, on several levels…. First, it’s been years since I’ve had to explain to anyone that “People are ‘Asian,’ rugs are “Oriental.’” Second, Bo Dietl, a Fox pundit, actually pulls his eyes back on Don Imus’ show to mimic how he says Katie Couric’s eyes make her look “Chinese.” Third, [...]

[Read more →]

Filmmaker Steve Nguyen of FlipHD posted a cool interview with Phil Yu, the man behind AngryAsianMan.com, one of the truly essential Asian American blogs, earlier yhis week.
Coincidentally, Erin and I interviewed Phil tonight for

[Read more →]

Unlike the many Chinatowns that serve as ethnic cultural enclaves in many American cities from coast to coast, and the increasing numbers of districts variously called “Koreatowns” and “Little Saigons,” you won’t find many Nihonmachi, or Japantowns. There are lots of reasons for this, but the main one is probably the Japanese American community’s need [...]

[Read more →]

It’s been a hectic week and I’ve been traveling, so I didn’t get to post any updates on Tuesday’s elections. Asian Americans are making strides and gaining visibility in politics, which makes me very happy. You can keep up with Asian American politics at one of the best sources for information, APAs for Progress.
In particular, [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s another reason why we wish we lived on the West Coast: “Aoki,” a new documentary about Richard Aoki, the third-generation Japanese American who was one of the founding members of the revolutionary African American Black Panther Party in the late 1960s, is premiering in Oakland (where the Black Panthers were formed) on Nov. 12. [...]

[Read more →]

Really? Unfortunately, yeah. Sure, maybe the guy was just describing Yi’s nationality, like calling a player “the Russian,” But you would never call the Russian player “the Russkie” (I’m pretty sure Russkie is still a pejorative in the post-Cold war era).
If he wanted to describe the nationality of Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey [...]

[Read more →]

I love New York City’s Chinatown. I spent many afternoons wandering its streets when I was an art school student in the 1970s in Brooklyn, and I spent nights wandering its streets when I worked for six months in Jersey City on the other side of Manhattan several years ago. There’s no feeling like it [...]

[Read more →]