I confess to something very un-American.
Or since it’s me, would that be un-Asian American? Un-Filipino American?
This week on the day after the attacks on Brussels, for the first time ever, I really did feel a bit of fear.
It wasn’t the full blown Donald Trump/Ted Cruz fear of all things Islam–i...
Even as an American Filipino, an Asian American, it’s hard not to be engaged by the historical news happening in Cuba.
People are getting choked up over seeing the first American president in Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
(White House photo)
Even me.
And you’ll hear that fact over and ov...
Is Donald Trump a racist?
That was a great first-round made-for-TV question from reporter Karen Tumulty at Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Miami, put on by Univision, the Washington Post and carried by CNN.
I kept wondering if anyone would have had the guts to ask any Southern Dixiecrat such a ...
It was getting so bad on the 88th Oscars telecast, I had the sound turned down. But then Chris Rock introduced the Oscar accountants. It was a bad enough sight gag. I only saw the three Asian American kids with the black-rimmed glasses.
Oh yeah, because they’re good at math.
Is that any better tha...
My dad once told me that when he first arrived in the U.S. in the 1920s, some Americans would say the family name in an odd way to his face.
I always pronounced our name, Guillermo, the Filipino way: “Gill-yer-mo.”
But he told me some insisted on taking the life and beauty out of it.
They said, “...
The Twitterverse was abuzz as soon as the news broke that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had been found dead at a resort in West Texas.
I saw honest expressions of shocked disbelief, some with a mixed sense of sadness and relief that a tenacious conservative opponent had passed on.
Based o...
Oakland Raiders quarterback great Kenny Stabler getting elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame made my Super Bowl Weekend. For me, that overshadowed the corporate juggernaut known as the Super Bowl, with its 100 million-plus viewers worldwide. And considering there are 1.4 billion people in Chin...
If you’re not a fan of the Carolina Panthers or the Denver Broncos, what team do you root for if you even bother to watch Super Bowl 50?
You might go ethnic.
When it comes to football, Asian Americans must go deep into a team’s DNA to find a rooting interest. And my Filipino friends have discovere...
Donald Trump not on the debate stage on Thursday night? Big deal. Neither was an Asian American.
But Asian Americans in Iowa are hoping to make some noise at the Iowa caucuses.
There are some Asian Americans there, you know.
You can’t tell from the street, but Ingersoll Wine and Spirits is not ju...
I’ve talked about the lack of diversity in movies and TV forever in my pieces on this blog. And though the Oscars are once again all-white and deserving of our ire, Asian Americans of Filipino descent have reason to cheer at least for network television.
You can add Vincent Rodriguez III as a Filip...
State of the Union addresses are usually more “I have a list,” than they are “I have a dream.”
But for this last go-round for President Obama, his list was shorter than normal, and the dream part was much larger.
And this comes from a list-worthy president, whose accomplishments were far greater t...
I hate guns. But I hate wimpier attempts at gun control more.
And President Obama’s latest attempt is so modest, so restrained, it hardly makes the NRA quake in its boots.
Even the president admitted, it’s hardly a conspiracy to take away anyone’s guns. It’s really just a first step to a relativel...
In 2015, is there a bigger story for Asian Americans than Islamophobia?
What? You’re not Muslim? Aren’t you a big-beach-umbrella-Asian American? You don’t have to like sand.
What about a golf umbrella?
It amazes me how I still hear comments from people who should pick up a history book and unders...
Next to Santa getting stuck in a chimney due to an overly large body part, can one imagine a tragedy worse than what unfolded live at the Miss Universe Pageant on the Sunday before Christmas?
Oh, you didn’t see it? You, the sane one, above it all, who doesn’t partake in such light bon-bons as beaut...
If the fifth Republican debate made you feel fearful and anxiety ridden, here’s something to celebrate instead.
On Dec. 17, 1943, 72 years ago this week, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Magnuson Act, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Laws. They were those nasty laws that came out of hate...
It’s a coincidence that the President should give his standup Oval Office terrorism talk on the eve of Pearl Harbor Day, Dec.7, the day that lives in infamy.
Unless you’re Asian American, of course, because Dec. 7 simply started the clock that would bring us to Infamy Day’s domestic companion momen...
As the investigation continues in the San Bernardino mass shooting case, I’m wondering if the search for a hard terrorist connection will result in the general terrorizing of innocent Muslim Americans.
And if anyone is wondering about the innocent South Asian American child left behind by the two S...
Even on Sunday, I was still in a post-Thanksgiving Day stupor–watching football with the sound turned down. But when the news came on, I was wide awake.I saw a picture of a woman who was unmistakably Asian. She was one of the three victims of the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado: Jennifer Mar...
Does it feel like 1942 to you yet?
America, if you haven’t noticed, isn’t feeling like itself these days.
Instead of large, gracious and visionary–the bastion of freedom and liberty—our country and its leaders are feeling puny and small. Donald Trump “Put up a Wall” small.
And it all changed on N...
For Asian Americans, two issues always give us the moral high ground: the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans and the fight over equity pay for Filipino American veterans of WWII.
But just because you have the moral high ground doesn’t mean you are guaranteed victory.
That’s been true for the...
