For Asian Americans, polls are a vast wasteland where we don’t exist. Mainstream exit polls that dare mention Asian Americans are unreliable. Which is why my favorite of all polls are the AALDEF exit polls (coming up in November), in language, on the spot talking to real people about what they just ...
I’d like to take a deep breath and consider what I’m hearing in the news, but I’m in California.
In our most Asian American state, no matter where you are, you can’t escape all the fire and the flames. It’s sort of like news on the latest Trump outrage. Smoke drifts in and discolors everything, tur...
With Labor Day coming up, here’s a perennial question that must be asked again and again at this time every year until everyone gets it right.
Can you name a great Asian American labor leader who’s a household name or should be?
Perhaps a name equal to Cesar Chavez?
If an answer doesn’t roll off ...
Did you stay to the very end of the bizarre Trumpian cavalcade of mistruths, a/k/a/ The Donald’s acceptance speech at the Covid-compromised Republican National Convention?
If not, you likely missed the part of the RNC that was the most Asian American.
Mind you, this was not a GOP convention the li...
The latest survey from AAPI Data may show Asian Americans backing Biden by 59 percent, but take away the undecideds and nearly 1 in 3 of us still support Trump. Thirty-three percent is a pretty big number, one that rivals Hispanics for Trumpiest people of color in the country.
Based on the ethnic b...
When Day 4 of the Democratic National Convention was over, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stood with their spouses on an outdoor stage in Wilmington, Delaware and watched the fireworks burst skyward. I’d expect the convention bounce poll numbers to boom similarly.
The candidates deserved the fireworks...
As a journalist in both the mainstream and ethnic media, I’ve covered diversity in America before anyone knew what to call it.
There’s never been a night quite like Wednesday in American political history.
Barack Obama, America’s first Black, multiracial president, quietly ripped apart Donald Trum...
Michelle Obama hit it out of the Zoom room (as we all expected). So did Bernie Sanders, acting like the pole holding up the Dems’ Big Tent. (He actually mentioned “Asian Americans” by name!) But poor Eva Longoria Baston (whom I love maybe a tad bit more than Terri Hatcher). She just seemed like a “D...
Kamala Harris is the feel-good politician of the hour. Being Joe Biden’s pick for veep means if something happens to elder Joe, Kamala is it. Does that make you feel good? What balances out a legacy warhorse from Delaware better than a fiery and energetic Black and South Asian woman of Indian descen...
Dolores Velasco hangs on to life in a Tehachapi, Calif. hospital near where the Filipino farm workers fought the ag industry and made history.
Now she’s fighting not to be part of an historic surge in the pandemic.
Velasco has Covid-19 and goes in and out of alertness, according to her friends. Bu...
In a moment I will share my one regret as an Asian American of Filipino descent, after observing Donald Trump these last few days. But let’s start by saying I’m truly embarrassed for our country.
Earlier this week, Trump retweeted a message from Dr. Stella Immanuel of Houston. She’s a pastor/doctor...
I would see John Lewis when I worked as a press secretary in the 103rd Congress. He was still young and feisty, just in his 50s, and had the fire to turn an ordinary one-minute speech on the House floor into a bit of passionate rhetorical magnificence. It could be on anything, but more likely it was...
The Washington Slants of the NFL? Could be the new name. Simon Tam likes the sports entendre.
Three years ago this month, Simon Tam won the right to call his rock band something that was considered a disparaging name, The Slants.
The Supreme Court affirmed unanimously that Tam could trademark and ...
Roger Stone’s commutation? Is that like being sentenced to years of never-ending rush hour traffic through the Lincoln Tunnel? (Though truthfully, that might be the equivalent of 40 months in prison.)
No, a commutation wipes out the time to be served. That’s better than an express lane. You’re done...
As they say, I’m not throwing away my shot.
I took it. I saw it. Finally. It being “Hamilton,” the hottest ticket of the last five years. (I know, where have I been? Waiting in line, excluded. Again).
So I’m glad this past Freedom Weekend, Disney finally gave poor, underprivileged folks like me a ...
Here’s New Yorker Tiffany Chu describing a man who walked up to her and just started talking: “And he said, ‘Trump says all Asians have coronavirus,’ you disgusting (expletive deleted).’”
The man didn’t stop there.
“He called me a bunch of other things,” she said. “He started spitting at me. . .I ...
I won’t be going to my “big sister’s” funeral this week.
With COVID-19, how are we expected to get our Filipino death selfie? You know, the “open casket-big family” picture that we post on social media for all the relatives in the Philippines.
But I can’t go. As an OG at risk, it’s prudent to stay...
There’s always the big “but,” right?
Still, before we get to that issue, you resilient Dreamers– nearly 800,000 recipients of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, deserve a celebratory fist-pump in these unsettling pandemic times.
So please feel free to let out a resounding, o...
George Floyd has been laid to rest but new incidents, big and small, indicate the racial dynamic is changing in America for real.
It’s like the collective knee of a race-weary nation is on the neck of every racist in America until things change. Or until they breathe their last breath.
Turnabout i...
If Donald Trump had a shred of humanity, he’d offer real solace to the family of George Floyd in a way that could surprise us all. Do something nice, like invite them into the White House for some comfort.
Who would expect that photo op?
Trump is the only president in recent history who can make a...
