I’m still trying to understand the events of this week in the red part of the blue state, California.
The news was jarring on Wednesday morning. A stabbing at UC Merced? Is that Berkeley? No, more like three hours away. Merced is in the deepest part of the least populated and most underserved part ...
If you had a choice, who would you rather be–longtime criminal Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow or San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee? Not just for one devilish day on Halloween, but in real life.
If you need help, here’s Ed Lee in Giants drag last year in San Francisco’s World Series parade.
This year, the Ne...
On Sunday, California celebrates the first statewide Larry Itliong Day, honoring the Filipino American farm worker labor leader on his 102nd birthday.
And what a way to start the final week of October, as Filipino American History Month winds down to a close. Add the coincidence that the Mets are i...
Nick Kristof’s column reframing Asian Americans as the “model minority” caused quite a stir last week. And the New York Times op-ed star’s response published on Facebook probably won’t win over his many critics.
I wasn’t sold. (See my original column in response to his here).
Let me just say, hi...
When the presidential candidates square off and debate in this campaign, I hope they don’t think Asian Americans are such “success stories” they can simply write us off when it comes to public policy.
And I hope someone doesn’t point to us and say, Asian Americans are the “good example” or, heaven ...
With the help of the Pew Research Center’s new data analysis, I have seen the future and indeed, it is all about us.
When I’m 100 or so, I fully expect my Filipino nurse/caretaker to cheer me up with the salutation: “We’re No. 1, Mr. G!”
Finally.
That would be the year 2055, when Pew says Asian A...
As I child, I remember hearing the news about the presidential campaign of 1960.
People made a big deal of the fact that John F. Kennedy–the Democrat running against Richard Nixon–was Catholic.
Like there was something wrong with that?
Apparently back then, yes. It didn’t even occur to me that bi...
There’s a reason why you won’t see an Asian American on the main tier of CNN’s GOP debate. Or any presidential debate in the near or distant future.
Republican or Democratic, it doesn’t matter. Most people who see an Asian American simply don’t see “president.”
Even with Donald Trump lowering the ...
If you’re an American Filipino, an Asian American foodie, or anyone who relishes fresh, local food—before you take another bite, take the time to remember who picked it. Then look up to the skies and thank the Filipinos in the fields of California who brought about fairness, civil rights, and social...
I read the Wall Street Journal‘s tweet on Sunday night about China’s president, seen by Asians and Asian Americans around the world.
Is there any question the Wall Street Journal must apologize?
And yet by Monday, nothing.
Just this non-apology.
We recently removed a tweet on our Xi Jinping ar...
While in college, I was a TV news intern at WNAC, now WHDH in Boston. Later, I was a full-fledged TV professional and worked as a 20-something reporter at KOLO in Reno, KXAS in Dallas, and KRON and KPIX in San Francisco.
I knew the life Alison Parker and Adam Ward were embarking on.
I know what it...
One hundred twenty years ago, in the latter part of August, the U.S. picked a fight with Wong Kim Ark, who then took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. Wong was simply coming back from a vacation to China, when he was denied re-entry in San Francisco.
His Chinese parents weren’t citizens,...
I’m at the Asian American Journalists Association’s annual convention this week, a time for personal reflection.
Why didn’t I become a doctor or lawyer?
Just kidding.
From Orwell’s “Why I Write:” “From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a wr...
At the first GOP debate, as Republicans flooded the stage with presidential candidates on both the varsity and JV level, I didn’t hear a thing about one very important topic.
Did anyone even mention the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act?
This, of course, is what often is referred to as t...
Simon Tam isn’t giving up.
But he admits he was taken aback when an unnecessarily harsh amicus brief by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association was filed this week against his efforts to trademark his rock band’s name, “The Slants.”
“I was completely surprised, especially since NAPAB...
If we want a new race conversation, we’d better start with a better approach to race polling.
Earth to everyone. It’s not a black and white world anymore. Especially not in the U.S. So why are polls on race, in their execution and their findings, still mired in a polarizing black/white paradigm?
T...
Randall Park has had such a big year as the star of “The Interview” and as the comedic anchor of “Fresh Off the Boat.” He even won a V3con award from the Asian American Journalists Association in Los Angeles this year for representing.
But if he wants a shot at an Emmy, he’d better talk to Easter X...
This may be the best time ever for Asian Americans to realize what’s really in their best interest.
And though it may surprise you, it could actually be this thing called “affirmative action.”
It sure isn’t suing Harvard for discrimination.
In fact, the U.S. Education Department has done that coa...
Korean American Ryan Garner-Carpenter, 27, walked down Market Street at SF Pride, a new man of options.
Ask him what he’s into and he’ll say leather and whips.
But if he was into all things bondage before last week, now he can add something new–the right to marry.
For gay Asian Americans like R...
“I’m doing fine,” Ronald Ebens told me on Wednesday, a day after the June 23 anniversary of Vincent Chin’s brutal murder, when I asked how he was doing.
He was quick to add, “I had a good Father’s Day with my kids.”
And when I asked if he did anything special on Tuesday, the actual day Chin’s life...
