Earlier this year, Vogue’s Anna Wintour was called a “fur hag” by animal rights protestors in New York. But in any doting hagiography, Wintour would be hailed not as a “hag” but as a “saint.”
Of course, she’d have to die first.
I’m thinking about the term “hagiography” a lot lately because when so...
A person I know, an Asian American, tried to commit suicide many years ago.
They called me up and we talked. They lived.
Now they are older and near dementia. But the memory of that critical moment when I kept them on the phone for hours is forgotten.
Even without their current circumstances, the...
We should have expected the skirmishes on the southern border that occurred over the weekend. When Donald Trump sends military force to the border, you are relieved that all you hear about is tear gas. But you’re dismayed because there’s no good reason the situation couldn’t have been handled more p...
Asian Americans who lived in San Francisco will remember Herb Caen, the columnist who made his use of the ellipsis legendary in his creation of three-dot journalism…So I’m in that state of mind… Right now… Three dots it is, demarcations of thoughts and items in a vertical space, a column (oh, let’s ...
On the day after one of the biggest turnouts ever for a U.S. midterm election, the president of the United States won’t let reality spoil his view of life through Trump-colored glasses.
2018 midterms? Why, they were a “tremendous success,” according to a succinct Trump tweet.
But then he gave a ne...
This is the most racially charged election I’ve experienced in nearly a generation.
It was 1994—24 years ago– that California voted overwhelmingly for Prop.187, a ballot initiative to deny public services to the undocumented. The law was later ruled unconstitutional. But it proved that even in the ...
(CAMBRIDGE, MASS)–I got back from a vacation just in time for the pipe bombs and attempted assassination attempts on two former presidents, among other prominent outspoken people, and a major media organization.
It’s the reason I took a vacation in the first place–to get away from the nasty hot rhe...
Once the 15th passes, the confluence of National Hispanic Heritage Month and Filipino American History Month ends, and the Filipinos have October all to themselves.
Or so I thought.
October turns out to be a little promiscuous. It’s also German American Heritage Month (Oh, yeah that Octoberfest th...
I am banging my gong slowly to herald the change our country is about to endure.
Even before the sex and beer issues that cloud the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, there were the issues beyond Roe v. Wade that were important to Asian Americans and gave many of us reason to dou...
Fighters of racism and sexism, it’s going to take more than a week-long FBI investigation to get to the bottom of what’s becoming the Kavanaugh debacle.
At his Rose Garden media conference, Donald Trump did something Monday that shows he doesn’t truly understand what the hubbub over his Supreme Cou...
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had me at “I’m terrified.”
She read it in her opening statement. But the observation was also noted by Rachel Mitchell, the Maricopa County attorney who was hired by the Republican males of the Senate Judiciary Committee to be their prophylactic device.
They didn’t like t...
It’s just been a few days since the world saw two major catastrophic weather events– in Asia and America–develop and land simultaneously.
But please don’t utter the phrase, “We got off easy.”
If you do, kindly continue to bury your head in the sand, but for fun and emphasis do switch out the sand ...
Pardon me for being so ebullient when that anonymous
New York Times op-ed writer heralded the Resistance Inside.
Seems like it wasn’t the cavalry to the rescue, after all.
As President Obama said himself at a speech in Illinois on Friday, these times are “not normal.” They’re “extraordinary,” and ...
When Richard Nixon died, I recalled writing his obit while working in Washington, DC. Here was the man who, until recently, may have been the worst president ever who considered himself above the law. But apparently, that’s like high-rise living. There’s always someone one floor above you.
Still, w...
One of the biggest laughs I got on Friday was when I welcomed people to my one-man show, “Amok Monologues: All Pucked up-NPR, Harvard and more,” and referred to it as “Crazy Poor Asian.”
“Crazy Poor Asian!”
Unfortunately, many in the mostly Asian American crowd could relate. And that’s what we sho...
I’m crestfallen, recovering from the news that my friend Dawn Mabalon, a tenured professor and scholar in U.S. History at San Francisco State University, specializing in Filipinos in the American Labor movement, has died.
Dawn was a bright, energetic ball of fire who took American Filipinos and U.S...
For the first time, I’m doing my full show at the Manilatown Center next to the historic I-Hotel site in San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 17 at 7:30 pm. It’s called the “Amok Monologues: All Pucked Up; NPR, Harvard, and more,” and it’s not really a semi-shameless plug.
Prepping the show for the 17th h...
When it comes to the future of affirmative action, look to California, where all the Asian Americans are.
Don’t look to Harvard and the lawsuit being waged against that school, which may ultimately make its way to the Supreme Court.
That case is more like a crimson-tinted red herring.
It’s being ...
Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor showed how deeply divided this country is when they courageously spoke from the bench to condemn the majority 5-4 decision in favor of the Trump travel ban.
But it’s Sotomayor’s historical twist that deserves the headline as she invoked the name Ko...
Orlando…Until I arrived here in rainy central Florida, I almost forgot that two years ago on June 12, Orlando was the scene of the worst case of mass gun death in U.S. history.
The Pulse nightclub, June 12, 2016. Do you even remember?
We’ve had so many other shooting incidents since then. Las Ve...
