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
I’m crying. And it’s not from tear gas. I was watching cable news. Just like the president.
On my screen, a young Asian American woman, blonde streaks in her hair, desperately helps her distressed Asian American male companion. He’s squinting in anguish as if mocking Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at
Disgusted by the video of a white Minneapolis cop with a knee to the neck of George Floyd for at least eight minutes until Floyd, an African American man, succumbs and dies?
You should be. Or let’s make that, you better be.
If you haven’t realized it yet, that person could just as easily be an Asi
When the Class of 2020 was admitted to Harvard, I had just finished a visit to my alma mater.
The most memorable thing I saw at Harvard Yard was a very young Chinese girl who, at the insistence of her parents, was looking through the lens and taking their picture on the steps of Widener Library. Pe
The White House doesn’t know which end is up when it comes to Covid.
Mask or no mask? Test or no test? Social distancing? Only, apparently, from common sense.
Trump is leading everyone to rush back in and open up, even as the U.S. death toll rises to over 80,000, more deaths than the Vietnam War.
It’s easy to be annoyed with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, a/k/a the yearly excuse for non-APAs to pay attention to us.
As a group, we are notoriously “unstatisticized” (coinage mine). There never seems to be a large enough sample size of Asian Americans to be statistically meaningful.
It
This year, the man who puts the “P” in Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, or the “NHPI” in Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander, a/k/a AANHPI Month, is Dr. Raynald Samoa.
When Dr. Samoa tells you how to pronounce his name, he says it’s like “rainbow” with no “b.” So it’s “Ray-no," a
In 2020, we’re all practically Covid Americans caught in a crisis that could last two years and infect up to 70 percent of America, according to media reports.
That’s why the key guest on my APA Heritage Month special of Emil Amok’s Takeout, is the person I’ve dubbed one of the country’s “Most Esse
