In more than twenty years, Asian Americans have gone from chanting “I am not a spy” to “I am not a virus.”
We may have to go back to the old phrase.
These are the time-honored battle cries used to call out the racist hate we’ve experienced when U.S. nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee was falsely accused
Asian American? I feel like a Ukrainian today.
I just saw President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to Congress. Don’t just watch the clips and soundbites. Get it all. See the video that it includes. If you’ve followed the war on the news, the images will be familiar. They are part of our lives. The wa
Evil.
We’ve born witness to it these past few weeks.
Russia denies it, but we can see for ourselves.
A maternity hospital shelled. Nuclear power plants attacked. Residential neighborhoods targeted. Innocent civilians killed. Before our eyes, we see Russia’s war in Ukraine unfold. Russia’s lies ab
Nuclear power plants usually mean clean energy. Unless there’s an accident like Chernobyl. Or an attack on a power plant by a madman like we saw last night in Ukraine. Russia has turned a peaceful energy source into a de facto nuclear weapon.
And that’s where we are with Russia’s war on Ukraine.
S
State of the Union? As I like to ask in my talk show, “What would an Asian American think?” Let me also give a SOTU response through a generic, homogenized American lens. And more relevantly, let me respond as if I were wearing the earbuds of a Putin or a Zelensky.
“Folks,” (as Joe Biden would say)
The State of the World and the State of our Union both came into view for what was an historic coincidence last Friday, February 25th.
From Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the War in Ukraine, this is a snapshot of where we are in 2022.
Connected.
The world woke up last week to the invasion of Ukra
The Winter Olympic games have ended, and now the real geopolitical games have begun with the U.S. and its allies trying hard not to go down the treacherous slopes of war.
And so we ask, will Ukraine become the new Uyghurs?
You’ll recall the Uyghur Muslim minority–silenced, reeducated and repressed
Eileen Gu has become one of the most watchable Asian Americans in our day.
Only she isn’t. Or she is. Asian American.
Gu is what my old pal Corky Lee would call an ABC, “American Born Chinese.”
I call her an ABC-T, “American-born, Chinese Team.”
What we need now is clarity. From China and from G
Christina Yuna Lee died tragically, violently, unexpectedly on Sunday morning. She screamed her last breath.
Last night, my friend Jose (Joe) Ganoza died in peace.
I’ve known Joe for more than 50 years. I didn’t know Christina at all. And yet I feel her loss far more. We had many slivers of affini
Nathan Chen. Chloe Kim.
Both Asian Americans, Americans in Asia, pure Olympic gold.
But the question remains. Will someone find a way to make it to feed a new stereotype, a model minority myth of Olympic proportions? Tiger Moms are hungry.
More on that in a bit.
First, let’s celebrate America’s
Eileen Gu is the Asian American to watch at these 2022 Winter Olympics, but not so much for her twisting, flipping, and spinning through the air in multiple 360s during a 90-second freestyle ski run.
Gu’s gaining notoriety by applying her athleticism to the geo-political nature of these “Xi-Putin G
We all want to see the Winter Olympics in China, the Lunar New Year treat. But before we marvel at the freedom of Nathan Chen as he performs his revolutions on ice or feel the big air of snowboarder Chloe Kim’s gravity defiance, remember the Uyghurs first.
They don’t feel any of that freedom.
The
Before we all celebrate the calendar’s happy coincidence–the Feb. 1 start of both the Lunar New Year and Black History Month– there’s still time to mark the importance of the end of January.
Sunday, January 30 was the 103rd birthday of Fred T. Korematsu, remembered in legal history as the man who s
Neal Katyal is a lawyer and a former Acting U.S. Solicitor General. According to the ABA Journal, he has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any minority lawyer in American history, breaking the record of former Justice Thurgood Marshall.
In other words, Katyal knows how to talk to Supr
Whenever I hear the term affirmative action, I breathe.
On the in breath, I say “Affirmative.” On the out breath, I say “Action.”
It’s calming. I’ll tell you how I’m applying it in a bit.
But first…. The breath is a vehicle of mindfulness. The in-breath. The out-breath. Conscious breathing. You c
Joe Biden’s presidency is a year old today. And all I can think about is Michelle Go.
To make things go, he should think Michelle Go.
But first.
The real news after that special news conference at Biden’s one year mark is that he wants to run again—for now.
Of all the questions asked, that one q
The family of Martin Luther King, Jr was adamant about MLK’s birthday. There would be no celebration without legislation.
At this point, we may not get either. But we will have time to reflect. The fight isn’t quite over yet, which is why later in this column, I want to remember an Asian American a
President Biden’s speech in Atlanta on getting voting rights legislation passed by the MLK holiday may as well have been his “I Have A Dream” speech.
He just doesn’t have the votes, at least not yet.
But it may have been his best civil rights speech ever.
He was personal and direct, and with our
The masked man in the Capitol Rotunda wore an American flag cape and waved a Filipino broom. Known as a “boi-boi” or a “Walis Tambo,” the handmade tool made for sweeping was a tell-tale sign on Jan. 6.
Asian Americans were not exactly wallflowers at this party.
For Kene Brian Lazo of Norfolk, Virg
Hope you took my suggestion and rebirthed yourself as the New Year’s baby for 2022. You deserve a fresh start!
And that’s why I’m not going to talk about Covid and Omicron to kick off the year. You’re living that story.
Instead, let’s talk ethnic studies. Not “critical race theory,” mind you. Ethn
