Every year I tell you, dear readers, about how my dad died the week of Father’s Day.
This year, I’m announcing my show about my 1920s Filipino dad is coming to the east coast.
“Emil Amok” is about how a colonized Filipino arrived in America in 1928, and how I completed his journey taking him to Ha
I wonder if Trump could imagine an Asian American war hero like Dan Inouye, the former Hawaii Senator awarded the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart for what he did in the south of France during World War II? Or would he see a Democratic firebrand who was leading the charge against him?
Too compli
While Donald Trump is in England as our country’s Republican standard bearer acting like a horse’s ass, you know the Brits are simply being civil the way you’re supposed to with people you can’t stand—“un-officially.”
That’s the value of that stiff upper lip stuff. It’s the only logical parry to “T
Omphalopsychite.
It’s a $500 word for navel-gazer.
Some say it’s what I do for a living.
I didn’t know I was part of that august group until I saw the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a/k/a the national Asian American (specifically South Asian) display of word deconstruction, one letter at a time.
I’d like to say whatever happens in the Philippines stays in the Philippines, but it seems that “nationalistic/authoritarian thing” is racing round the world. And it’s not going to stop in the Philippines.
As I write, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India has secured another victory in parliament w
It was appropriate that I.M Pei, the legendary architect, died during Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
The month, which started as an homage to the first Japanese immigrants (May 7, 1843), as well as the completion of the transcontinental railroad (May 10, 1869) by Chinese immigrant
Considering his slow death by subpoena, Trump has to find joy where he can get it. Glorifying a redeemed Tiger Woods is about as fun as his job gets these days.
It wasn’t exactly an Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month ceremony, but Trump scored an ace when he honored Woods with the highe
It’s here again. Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
AAPIHM!
God bless you?
Every year in May we celebrate. But a friend of mine seems to be growing weary of it all.a
Instead of joy for the month when people of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent can feel united and strong in
I admit to having a strange pang of Filipino/Asian American pride knowing that Noel Francisco—his father a Filipino immigrant who came to America to practice medicine—was arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States as the U.S Solicitor General.
Too bad he was on the wrong side of the case
The most oft-quoted line of the day? It’s what Trump said when he first learned about the appointment of a special counsel.
“The president slumped back in his chair and said, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f***ed.”
But I didn’t print out 500 pages of the Muelle
Tiger, Tiger, Tiger?
No, I say, “Tida, Tida, Tida!”
Like many of you over the weekend, I was glued to my television, watching golf again and wearing red, and not because of Palm Sunday.
There was Tiger Woods, who after enduring nearly a decade of both physical and emotional debilitation, not to m
Every week comes the hope that things will get better. You know, slow down, get back to a normal where we’re seen as all being on the same team, and America could seem like America again.
But every week brings a new set of crises for the Trump administration, guided by a moral compass that spins wi
Donald Trump has proposed a new redistricting idea to have Congressional districts carved out in the shape of his silhouette—the actual outline of his full body profile to scale.
“I was doodling on some scrap paper–last year’s budget I think–and as I drew myself, I thought I saw the future of North
I confess.
In 9th grade I did not read Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” Instead, I read the Cliff Notes. Couldn’t get past Pip sounding like a Filipino name. But I did feel deprived knowing only through a secondary source about Miss Havisham’s wedding dress.
Sort of like I feel now after reading Att
I’m sad to say I’m stuck out in California and won’t be in New York for the big AALDEF dinner this Wednesday when it celebrates 45 years of fighting on behalf of the community.
But if you’re on the East Coast, I hope you’ll be there in person to celebrate the organization that after all these years
The news of the shooting in New Zealand was so fresh, it hadn’t yet been called a massacre. Or an act of domestic terrorism.
When I found out it was in two mosques, my heart sank.
I thought instantly of my cousin M. from the Philippines, whom I first met nearly 40 years ago. When she visited us in
I pulled out my old “Emil Amok” columns from Asian Week for the class on diversity and the media that I teach at San Francisco State. One of the yellowing columns I wrote was on the occasion of my mother’s death in 1998.
Josie Guillermo wasn’t famous. But she fulfilled a role in history after World
You know Donald Trump is up late in Vietnam, not eating pho, but watching Fox to see how he’s playing back home, not to mention how Michael Cohen’s doing.
Cohen? You know he’s about to perform under oath before the House Intelligence Committee in full public view. How high the stakes? Ask Rep. Matt
Here’s what bothers me about the hubbub over Jussie Smollett.
If his name were Fufai Pun, Kheong Ng-Thang, or Tsz Mat Pun, Smollett would’ve received a mere fraction of the coverage he did during his whole ordeal.
And then maybe, if he concocted it all, it wouldn’t have been worth it.
A mere frac
Heading into the Presidents’ Day Weekend, there’s nothing to celebrate.
Unless constitutional crises are your cue to party down.
Given all that, boy, could we use a laugh. Enter Ken Jeong a/k/a Leslie Chow, Dr. Ken, hardest working ex-HMO doc turned comedian with his new Netflix special.
But firs
