As Dylan sang, “The times they are a-changin.” Is our Asian American stereotype?
In San Francisco, where about 30 percent of the city is Asian, we still mourn the passing of the city’s first Asian American mayor, the late Ed Lee–the community activist turned bureaucrat turned can-do civic cheerlead...
The Washington Nationals—baseball’s new champs– will be parading in DC over the weekend, and I hope all the politicos in town will be there to remember what it was like to be on the same team.
Because the people in the nation’s capital have forgotten.
I used to live in the DC-area and except for t...
The president is finding out that killing a global terrorist doesn’t necessarily make you a conquering hero.
So in his unique Trumpian form of humility, the prez tweeted out a picture of a real hero–the yet unnamed dog who was instrumental in last weekend’s raid and killing of Islamic State leader ...
In case you didn’t know, Asian Americans were among the lynched in the U.S.
And since October is Filipino American History Month, it’s worth noting that Filipinos in particular were targeted in California.
But first, it’s galling to find lynching back in the news just because the president of the ...
If Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or anyone else wanted to make a splash at this week’s debate, they should have raised a more important issue than a national health plan.
A national diet is more like it.
And I don’t mean the Trumpian diet of Big Macs and Whoppers.
Sanders just had a heart at...
The vast majority of Asian Americans live in California, so chances are, you know someone in the grips of what I’m calling “The Great Forced Blackout of October 2019.”
Starting today (Oct. 9, which, coincidentally, is my birthday) Pacific Gas and Electric has blown out my birthday candles, affectin...
The decision by Federal Judge Allison Burroughs in the Harvard admissions case on Tuesday was just what we needed in this country.
It was a reminder that the process of achieving racial equity in admissions to Harvard is a step in the right direction, and that maintaining diversity is still the rig...
Hello Asian American Trump supporters. You know who you are.
After this week’s whistleblower revelations in the Trump-Ukraine Affair, are you sticking with your guy and swallowing your own whistle?
Or are you blowing harder than ever—like a patriot– to save our American democracy and repudiate the...
I knew it was going to happen early Tuesday when I saw reports that Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon, was on the floor of the House calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump.
It was the signal to all people of color.
You awake? The time has come.
But if Trump is to be impeached...
Hooray. NBC and Saturday Night Live did something right for a change.
But wait.
Surely, there are bigger fish to fry than the firing of the wayward racist Shane Gillis, right?
Of course, there are. And I will mention a big one in a sec.
But for now take a moment to pat yourself on the back if yo...
Andrew Yang wants to be president. And he’ll give you $1,000 dollars a month.
Bowen Yang wants to be a star on NBC Saturday Night Live. You just have to sit through all the commercials.
Which is more important? Don’t kid yourself.
Bowen Yang on a cultural barometer like SNL means a lot more to Am...
I always look at the famous AP photograph on 9/11. Just a glance. It’s all I can take.
For me more than the names being read, and the fake solemnity of the current president, nothing captures the horror quite like the moment of the falling man.
The falling, tumbling person has never been identifie...
It’s a good thing Donald Trump has a real hurricane, a Sharpie, and a fake map to play with.
Yes, the man is no cartographer like Amerigo Vespucci (now there’s a guy with a brand! He put the “A” in USA).
But at least the president has something other than golf to occupy his divine passion for lyin...
I’m driving around the Bay Area, and the talk is that traffic is lighter than normal in San Francisco because everyone who is anyone is at Burning Man in the Nevada desert.
Burning Man is not to be confused with an innocent person caught in the Amazon fires. Nor does it refer to the president, whos...
If you were an Asian American dreaming of an Asian Woman vs. Asian Woman, Elephant vs. Donkey battle royale for the presidency in 2020 in the form of Nikki Haley vs. Kamala Harris, well, you can forget it.
Haley, who occasionally speaks her mind against Trump, is still firmly within the GOP fold, r...
I happened to be driving through Dayton, a step ahead of the president who was starting his “Condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy, I really mean it,” tour. It’s where presidential responsibility as consoler-in-chief meets campaign self-interest.
I’m just trying to get home. Trump’s just tryi...
The evil that’s gripping the country, the deadly mix of guns, and white supremacy, Asian America has seen it before.
It’s definitely in our history. Just remember the name Fermin Tobera.
In the 1930s, when Filipinos were brought to America as 100 percent legal, colonized U.S. nationals primarily t...
After the first CNN Democratic debate, I noted that it was held in Detroit, the scene of the most famous Asian American hate crime that galvanized Asian American political activism and awareness. But in 2019, we didn’t really show up.
It was the whitest of the two debates, and the one who really pu...
Vincent Chin, the most famous of all Asian American hate crime victims, was murdered in the Detroit area, so maybe that was our way of being present at CNN’s Democratic presidential debate 2019, night one.
We were ghosts.
I listened for us. I didn’t hear Asian Americans mentioned once. Not even in...
I lost my chance to own and possess it.
I wanted it on eBay–but was outbid.
It was one of the original brochures of the 1904 World’s Fair. The one that had the human zoos with the Filipinos, euphemistically called a “Filipino Exposition.”
An expo, what fun!?
A friend of mine found it for me. Dur...
