Updates

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is around the corner, and from all appearances, most of us will be sheltering in place. But as I mused a few weeks ago, APA Heritage Month doesn’t have to be cancelled. Not when we have the technology to overcome it all! I urge you all to participate in my li

Gem Scorp is positive. But he’s feeling better and going back to work. He should be getting a thank you for his courage. Instead, he’s getting a right-handed slap from the commander-in-chief. Enabled by the virus, President Trump’s move to “pause” legal immigration is a way to sneak a major policy

You’ve zoomed, right? It’s the latest way to reach out and not touch someone in these times of social distancing. If you want an Asian American perspective on the news, here’s my conversation with longtime civil rights activist Phil Tajitsu Nash. A professor in Asian American Studies at University o

Next on Emil Amok’s Takeout: I talk with Gem Scorp, a registered nurse at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, who thinks we may have turned a corner in the fight against the pandemic. He tells me things have calmed down a bit. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being normal, things were at a 2 four weeks ago. They’r

If we’re at war with the virus, why does President Trump seem so eager to relax his trigger finger? So he can point his finger at something else–like the World Health Organization? China? Or Asian Americans? Now that he’s finally realized Covid-19 is no hoax, he’s all about playing the “not me” gam

Our sabre and shield against the pandemic? Hand washing and social distancing. Keep at it. Wash up and have a Zoom meeting. But since the curve has not flattened, and we don’t really know how many are infected (not until we test nearly everyone), we may be at the point for another tool in the U.S.:

I wish it were an April Fool’s joke, like everything else last month. But with Trump this week extending his initial “we’ll see what happens” period beyond 15 days to the end of April, what prudent state official wouldn’t look at Trump’s slow response record and just assume his timeline is going to

New Emil Amok’s Takeout Podcast! Emil Guillermo talks to San Francisco State Asian American Studies chair Russell Jeung about the numbers of Asian Americans who have come forward to describe stabbings, hateful name calling, and even people spitting and coughing on them. Almost 100 reports have come

So how’s the new “social distancing” going for you? When you’re an Asian American or a person of color, the old “social distancing” used to mean just one thing—racism. It was just a form of separation, what happens when people segregated from the “other.” No need to hang out with us. Distance was

CBS reporter Weijia Jiang tweeted how a White House staffer joked about the coronavirus in a racist way, calling it the “Kung Flu.” If comedian Joe Wong said it, maybe it could be funny. But when a White House aide says it to a working reporter in the midst of a national emergency, it’s just not a

As a broken America shuts down, are you thinking about each other and yearning for the way things used to be? You should be. Fellow virus fighters, this is the ultimate in the DIY health world. When health insurance isn’t a right for all, and when it’s up to you whether you’re sick or well, then

Andrew Yang has become a surrogate of sorts for Asian Americans. It’s the benefit of running for the highest office and losing—the very thing Donald Trump always wanted to do but couldn’t figure out how. He became president. Our loss. But Yang has done losing right. And now he’s become the go to f

Last Friday, I asked Roger Lau, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager, whether Warren would stay in or pull out if she lost on Super Tuesday. Lau said without hesitation, “We have a plan to go all the way through.” “This is going to be a long race,” he added, noting that Warren was in 31 states, with

After the South Carolina Democratic primary, here’s the lesson for Super Tuesday: When will the pandering begin toward Asian Americans? Don’t we deserve something special, considering all the years we’ve battled the “model minority” tag? That’s not just a tongue-in-cheek comment. Thanks to black

My Filipino American father was a hotel and culinary workers union member. He always voted, even if just for shop steward. And if he were alive today, I know how he would have voted. Bernie Sanders. No question. He’d consider Sanders a youngster. And they’d talk about income inequality and their h

It was front-runner Bernie Sanders and a slashing, clashing Elizabeth Warren who starred at Wednesday’s Nevada Democratic Debate. I was actually hoping someone would have mentioned the coronavirus, a/k/a COVID-19 problem, as it spreads around the world and to America. Asian Americans would have bee

For over 20 years, I’ve been a voice in the ethnic media clamoring about the lunacy of Iowa and New Hampshire as the gatekeepers in any national presidential campaign. It was seldom mentioned it in the mainstream media. But in 2020, the demographics of our country are so painfully obvious that not

Once again, the Oscars had no host. But it sure had a “Parasite.” The South Korean film was the first-non-English-language movie to win Best Picture. But by also winning the Best International Film honor, it made a mockery of all the divides and categories that keep us separated and apart. What be

I’m wondering what people are thinking in, say, the Philippines, or China–or anyplace where democracy is either non-existent or less than perfect. Are they envious of us here when they see examples of American democracy break down in front of their eyes? On Monday, the quaint exercise in democracy

In the past, whenever I referred to Ferdinand Marcos, the former Philippines dictator, it used to be automatic. Someone would always say, “Shoes.” That would be a reference to his wife, Imelda, who was known to have a collection of around 3,000 shoes. She also spent a lot of time in New York City,