Modern racism has evolved with the eruption of D.C. Councilman Marion Barry. Can one still say overtly racist things about Asian Americans and get away with it?Sure you can. And Barry's exhibit A. As he celebrated yet another landslide primary victory with...
For almost 15 years, Emil Guillermo wrote his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was an Ivy Orator and class humorist, a distinction shared by fellow Lampoon members like James Downey (Saturday Night Live) and Conan O'Brien.
Find out what he's up to at www.amok.com.
Emil's Other Posts
Next time a stupid disc jockey makes a joke about an Asian American's accent or when someone goes to the buck-tooth "ah-so" route to describe an Asian immigrant, please don't laugh and say, "Where's your sense of humor, bud?" Instead, remember...
My dear mother hated broccoli. She was healthy without it. She lived among the hipsters in San Francisco's SOMA district, only her perch was the senior housing at Clementina Towers. Mom never had much money. But boy, did she have health...
After the Dharun Ravi verdict, suddenly I'm nostalgic for the days when a noose was a noose, a hood was a hood, and a hate crime was a hate crime.Was there ever a doubt in that grand old formula? Add...
It's not exactly the southern headline the Romney campaign wanted to wake up to the morning after. But a win is a win in--American Samoa, where it's not true Romney got to count the big Samoans twice.At least now maybe...
Lady Gaga is all gaga about bullying, which she's trying to elevate in our consciousness as tantamount to human rights abuse.A bit far-fetched for some, but not for me.What is bullying but racism without color?To a bully, race doesn't matter....
The most hateful rhetoric of Tuesday night came from the mouth of a white male, probably late 20s-mid 30s, who was part of a CNN focus group in Ohio, a key state in next week's Super Tuesday voting.The man seemed...
Once again I watched the Oscars waiting for a Sacheen Littlefeather moment. You'll remember her (unless you think Christopher Plummer is the name of someone to call to fix that problem in the bathroom). Littlefeather is the Native American activist...
We were all having so much fun, too. But that's no excuse for racism.I was wondering when someone would use a "Chink in the Armor" reference.I'm sure many Asian Americans thought about it too. But only the most screwed up...
Maybe they should take down all the "NO MSG" signs in Chinese restaurants around New York.MSG officially stands for Madison Square Garden, and MSG is saying "YES!" in a big way to our new national Asian American hero, Jeremy Lin.Playing...
A prior engagement on the West Coast meant I couldn't get to the AALDEF dinner in New York City last week. So let me give my own award to AALDEF honoree Fareed Zakaria for an excellent interview Sunday with George...
A Super Bowl victory means New York is now home to a world-class football team. (It's primarily in Jersey, but who's to quibble?)Coach Tom Coughlin, the man everyone wanted fired mid-season, is now seen in a new light--as a victorious...
In politics, when the going gets rough, the tough get dirty and divisive. Even though voters say they don't like to see it, when a campaign is desperate to have a victory, going negative really works. Florida was so nasty, ...
After all the countless GOP debates, last night we really needed to see someone act presidential and remind us why this whole campaign process is important.And who else but a president can reassure a nervous country about its well-being, its...
I don't care about Romney's taxes. If H&R Block didn't do them for him, he made too much money, and he likely paid less tax proportionately than any of us.Indeed, to make $43 million over two years, paying $6.2 million...
Now that we are in primary season, it's pretty clear: The GOP doesn't have a real answer to President Obama.The party's once and future front-runner Mitt Romney is imploding. His hair is in place, but he's imploding.And the new momentum...
Jerry Yang, Chief Yahoo and quintessential Asian American internet entrepreneur, is no longer wildly shrieking the brand.Instead, the words from Yang's lips are whatever you say when something doesn't work out, or you don't find something.What's the opposite of "Eureka"...
The first GOP primary was a bit like musical chairs, except when the music stopped, there were still the same number of chairs and the same number of candidates.No one wants to leave, though surely the gig is up.Mitt Romney's...
An 8 point win in Iowa as we approach the Year of the Dragon would only be a good omen for an Asian American.Just not for Mitt Romney.Romney, the candidate who could be anchorman, hardly can be called a winner...
I've always thought it strange that the two bellwether states that really begin the political season are Iowa and New Hampshire.Bellwether for what? Certainly not diversity.In Iowa and New Hampshire, it may as well be America in the 1950s, impregnable...
With the death of Kim Jong-il comes a sliver of hope. Will the family franchise of famine and daredevil nuclear gamesmanship continue? Or, for the sake of its people, is there any chance of real change in North Korea?In other...
As of this week, I'm not buying my screws from Lowe's anymore, though there must be a surplus of loose screws back at the home office. The home improvement chain sure has a strange way of celebrating America's diversity. "Duck...
December 7th will live in infamy for a different reason in the history of the Occupy movement.In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee gave the OK for a brutal pre-dawn raid of the OccupySF encampment, with police moving in around 1...
Who would have thought the person to jumpstart an all-but-dead national immigration debate would be none other than the gringo's gringo, Newt Gingrich?Gingrich, the ethically challenged politico, proud philanderer, and insistent historian (never a--gasp--lobbyist), is truly someone to whom, say,...
It was the spritz heard round the world. Or rather, make that spritzes, unfortunately. There were way too many of them.But I think it couldn't have come at a better time.I had just been yearning for the halcyon days of...
Before we get on to juicier matters, it's still worth trumpeting Ed Lee's victory as the first elected Asian American mayor in San Francisco and what it means to our country, isn't it?I admit, it would be a much better...
If it weren't for Ranked Choice Voting, we'd have a runoff in San Francisco between the top two vote getters, interim Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor John Avalos.How conventional.Instead, Lee gets to drop the "interim" tag, becoming the "presumptive" mayor...
If you are one of the 17.3 million Asian Americans living in the U.S. with even a slight interest in any kind of politics, besides the Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations, it's hard to imagine you don't have at least...
For nearly 24 hours, Occupy Oakland had contributed another chapter to the ongoing national Occupy Wall Street movement with mostly peaceful demonstrations on Wednesday, powered by a general strike, the city's first since 1946. More than 7,000 people joined in...
San Francisco's mayoral election was supposed to be a showcase of Asian American political empowerment never before seen in the continental U.S.A bevy of Asian American politicians to choose from may be old hat in a place like Honolulu, where...
While watching this week's Western Republican Debate in Las Vegas via CNN, I kept looking for Asian American faces, if not content.After all, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing minority group in Nevada, rising 116 percent since...
Sometimes I think the biggest barrier to democracy is the franchise itself, voting.I mean everything from the physical act of casting a ballot (whether it be using a black marker, an old fashioned voting machine, or the infamous pinpricking of...
Watching on TV this weekend, I saw a video clip of the 700 arrests made on the Brooklyn Bridge. In a quick five-second shot, I saw at least one Asian American face among the protestors. Was it yours?Prior to this...
Texas Governor Rick Perry's blessing and curse is he's George W. Bush's protege.If you liked the cowboy boots on W., you'll love them on Perry. He's got real dung on those Tony Llamas.On the other hand, if you regret eight...
Any time government-sanctioned discrimination ends in America is cause for celebration.That's the real reason for the big hurrah over the official death of the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. But the military is trying to undersell it. "I will...
Where's the Flip Cam when you need it? Imagine this scene: 78-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sliding down an emergency chute as she evacuates a troubled jet at D.C.'s Dulles Airport. On her way down, do you think...
I had dinner there a number of times. I'd seen the view. I just can't imagine people leaping from the World Trade Center towers.For me, that's the lingering and most horrific image of 9/11. A distressed person in silhouette, taking...
There's a hard way and an easy way.And in the end Goodwin Liu took the easy way.Who could blame him after the nearly two years of being a political football in Washington?Today, Liu, the embattled yet eminently well-qualified Asian American...
This week began with rebels taking Tripoli. From the sound of it, President Obama loves a revolution:"Your courage and character have been unbreakable in the face of a tyrant," Obama said to the Libyan people on Monday. "An ocean divides...
David Chiu, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, is in New York Friday to seek funds for his San Francisco mayoral run.I'm actually surprised he's doing it.He's already raised more money than any other candidate to date by...
If you're depressed over the debt downgrade from Standard & Poor's, relax.America needn't act like an Asian American student who got her first B in math.You still got into Brown, right? See, it's not even that bad. And you're still...
After the debt ceiling deal was announced, I kept thinking about a phrase that is said about Asian Americans, a minority in every sense of the national political calculus, especially after our concerns aren't addressed.That phrase: "Where are they going...
Asian Americans as a group are known both for their political anonymity and scarcity. So anyone who can claim to be the first Chinese American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives is a big deal.Someone should have told...
Rupert Murdoch's in a fog. These days, at least from his testimony, the guy can't tell the difference between a phone hack and a hack writer. But we do know for some time now he's been suffering from a kind of...
To this day, affirmative action as public policy--giving qualified minorities a chance to compete for college admissions, public jobs, and contracts--is not just a sentimental throwback. It remains the noble, magnanimous, and right thing to do. But in a time...
As I set off my Chinese fireworks on the Fourth of July, thinking about freedom and independence and what it means to be American, I also had Jose Antonio Vargas on my mind.I hope he was celebrating the freedom of...
My 14-year-old daughter marched with the PETA float in San Francisco's Pride parade Sunday, wearing a "Vegan Pride T-shirt" and passing out stickers and pamphlets to the thousands of onlookers. Not all of them were gay, of course. But most...
President Obama seems intent on stretching the limits of our Orwellian disbelief. So here comes the $1 billion dollar question ($1 billion being the projected cost by September this year for whatever it is we're doing in Libya): Are we...
I've got my call into Ronald Madis Ebens. I've found him, heard his voice, and left my message on his answering machine. And when he calls me back, maybe he'll say something to make us all feel better.I'm not holding...
Scott Pelley begins his tenure this week as the anchor of the show that bears his name, "The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley." But I'm wondering, what if his name were Scott Pellicito or Scott Pelley Woo? I do congratulate...
If only Shaquille O'Neal could have announced his retirement during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May. Then we could have really ended the month with a bang!O'Neal is in all likelihood the biggest perpetrator of an Asian American slur...
Whooping cranes are endangered, but there are still more of them than there are federal judges of Asian American descent, of which there are just fourteen. Asian Americans, 17 million strong and five percent of the U.S. population, aren't merely...
The month of May is more than half over, and if you haven't boisterously greeted the next available warm body (of whatever sex, race or ethnic origin) with a loud and celebratory "Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month," what's your...
As we pick up the pieces, here's a sense of life inside Casa Osama. If you're a guy, you'd have been doing his dirty work---tending the goats. If you're a woman, you'd be lucky to be one of his four allotted...
When you're told to stand by for breaking news from the White House on a Sunday night, you know you're not about to get a standard garden-variety press release.What could possibly interrupt a night reserved for watching America's masterpiece theatre--that...
Without doubt, the Tyler Clementi story is a tragic one. The Rutgers University student committed suicide last year, plunging to his death from the George Washington Bridge. It was just days after his roommate allegedly displayed live video on the...
In recent years, Southeast Asian families in Minnesota and California were bombarded by this come-on: Win two free tickets to Laos.Not Disneyland. Not DisneyWorld. Laos. The homeland. Let's go! The catch? Just refinance your home with a new variable rate, interest...
I'm shocked that the National Association of Black Journalists has decided to pull out of Unity, the coalition of media professionals that always reminded me of the true purpose of being a journalist of color.As always, dollars are at the...
Simon Tam is both the manager and the bass player of a rock group known as The Slants. Are you offended yet? Tam, 30, came up with the idea for an Asian American, 80s dance-rock band four years ago. With...
Is there anything more ridiculous than the notion of war as a humanitarian mission? I suppose it depends on if you're the bomber or the bombed upon. As I heard President Obama lay down his justification for military action...
I wish they hadn't taken down that YouTube video of the now ex-UCLA coed who created a Sheen-like commotion last week with her anti-Asian rant.It was so perfect as the look of fresh, modern unconscious racism. It was the girl...
As a senior host for NPR's "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991, I was one of the first Asian Americans to regularly anchor a national news program when I co-hosted the weekends with Lynn Neary. Some of my favorite memories involve...
While the media was all agog giving airtime to Charlie Sheen last week, you had to look pretty hard to find coverage of something far more important to society: the gross and unfair treatment of federal court nominee Goodwin Liu.Liu...
Full disclosure right up front: Years ago before the first tech crash, I worked with David Chiu at Grassroots.com. I was a mere VP of webcasting. One of the big benefactors said I would be the next Larry King.I guess...
If you've been following what's going on in state houses in Wisconsin and New Jersey, it's just the beginning of a major catastrophe that will soon spread to my home state, California. There used to be red states and blue states. Now...
Flying into New York last week on a jet enabled for TV, it was a treat to watch democracy in action throughout the world. On one channel, Egypt was in full democratic eruption seeking a new modern future. On another...
Asian Americans usually never miss the boat. But maybe we have when it comes to Rush Limbaugh. (That would be a big boat, too.)If you haven't heard Limbaugh try to sound like your Asian ancestors, that's good. You've been spared...
As an Asian American and the longtime writer of a column called "Amok," I felt a strong spiritual obligation to be at the inaugural celebration of Fred T. Korematsu Day held last Sunday, Jan. 30, in Berkeley.Now here's a guy...
If you feared that this State of the Union address would be a sharp right turn from hope and change, relax.It was the best speech our first bi-racial president searching for middle ground could make.President Obama was purposefully in the...
The final list isn't official yet. But if San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan are among the guests at tonight's state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao, then surely someone in the Obama administration can make...
It's official. And in Asian American history, it's a big deal.San Francisco's new mayor is named Lee---Ed Lee, the first Asian American of Chinese descent to hold that position.Anyone who jokes that he's mayor because they lowered the height requirement,...
In California, with 4.4 million Asian Americans--the most Asian state in the nation--Jerry Brown is once again the chief executive. Are you ready for the pain?Previously a two-term governor at age 36, Brown is back for a third term at...
I don't know about you, but I'll be watching Sunday night football on Tuesday and feeling happy that Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania will be out of office on Jan. 18. It couldn't come soon enough.He may not like it...
Too many historic votes in the Senate this past weekend. Some good. Some bad. So maybe it's appropriate that my week began by attending a funeral of a young Asian American. My nephew Brian Francisco was just 31, an American...
When Barack Obama gets in trouble, he usually rallies with a rousing and passionate speech. But his compromising ways have turned him into just half the man we thought he was.So as the hot talk in Washington turns to tax...
This week when Congress is expected to finally vote on the so-called Dream Act, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will vote to kill it.And what of his one-time role as a lead sponsor of the original bill many years ago? It...
For all journalists, this I know to be true: We all love a good leak.It's the sexy part of the news game, to reveal something that heretofore was so off-limits and so verboten. That makes it one lucky day when...
In the last few weeks, airport security has gone X-rated in the hunt for terrorists. A new era has arrived when airline passengers are being quoted in the New York Times saying, "I didn't really expect her to touch my...
Nineteen years ago, the musical Miss Saigon first came to Broadway with a white actor augmented by eye prosthesis and bronzing cream to make him look more Asian.Sound a bit too Charlie Chan-like for the modern day? It seemed that...
George W. Bush smiled and chatted up Matt Lauer on the Today Show Wednesday. "I'm enjoying selling the book," Bush said. "My debating days are over."Yes, with his memoirs out now, Bush is all about retail. And I certainly understand...
So Democrats lost the House, but the Republicans couldn't win the Senate.It means on the national level, we are in for two years of "incremental nothing," when things only seem to be happening but aren't. We've seen gridlock before. And...
Even before the results are in, the Tea Party has impacted this year's mid-terms. But have you seen any Asian Americans in its ranks? I haven't noticed any. Which leads me to wonder, how can you call yourself a TP...
While we wait to see if New Jersey prosecutors will pursue hate crime enhancements against Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei in connection with the outing of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, is there anyone out there in the community who may...
Continue reading Hate Crime For Rutgers Outers?.
