To this day, affirmative action as public policy–giving qualified minorities a chance to compete for college admissions, public jobs, and contracts–is not just a sentimental throwback. It remains the noble, magnanimous, and right thing to do.
But in a time with 14 million unemployed, few jobs in ge...
As I set off my Chinese fireworks on the Fourth of July, thinking about freedom and independence and what it means to be American, I also had Jose Antonio Vargas on my mind.
I hope he was celebrating the freedom of the truth with some vigor.
Just over two weeks ago, Vargas, 30, set off some firewo...
My 14-year-old daughter marched with the PETA float in San Francisco’s Pride parade Sunday, wearing a “Vegan Pride T-shirt” and passing out stickers and pamphlets to the thousands of onlookers.
Not all of them were gay, of course. But most were and it had a real impact on my daughter.
“Boy, there ...
President Obama seems intent on stretching the limits of our Orwellian disbelief. So here comes the $1 billion dollar question ($1 billion being the projected cost by September this year for whatever it is we’re doing in Libya): Are we at war in that country or not?
The official answer: Drones aren...
I’ve got my call into Ronald Madis Ebens. I’ve found him, heard his voice, and left my message on his answering machine. And when he calls me back, maybe he’ll say something to make us all feel better.
I’m not holding my breath.
It will be 29 years on June 19th. On that day in 1982, Ebens, a then ...
Scott Pelley begins his tenure this week as the anchor of the show that bears his name, “The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.” But I’m wondering, what if his name were Scott Pellicito or Scott Pelley Woo?
I do congratulate Scott on his new role and wish him well. In fact, he’s an old colleague f...
If only Shaquille O’Neal could have announced his retirement during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May. Then we could have really ended the month with a bang!
O’Neal is in all likelihood the biggest perpetrator of an Asian American slur in the history of American pop culture.
Find someon...
Whooping cranes are endangered, but there are still more of them than there are federal judges of Asian American descent, of which there are just fourteen.
Asian Americans, 17 million strong and five percent of the U.S. population, aren’t merely woefully under-represented in the federal judiciary, ...
The month of May is more than half over, and if you haven’t boisterously greeted the next available warm body (of whatever sex, race or ethnic origin) with a loud and celebratory “Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month,” what’s your problem?
This is our month. By law (Section 102, Title 36 of ...
As we pick up the pieces, here’s a sense of life inside Casa Osama.
If you’re a guy, you’d have been doing his dirty work—tending the goats.
If you’re a woman, you’d be lucky to be one of his four allotted wives giving him his oat extract aphrodisiac. Yum.
You’d also know that bin Laden was inter...
When you’re told to stand by for breaking news from the White House on a Sunday night, you know you’re not about to get a standard garden-variety press release.
What could possibly interrupt a night reserved for watching America’s masterpiece theatre–that conniving Star Jones on Trump’s “Celebrity ...
Without doubt, the Tyler Clementi story is a tragic one. The Rutgers University student committed suicide last year, plunging to his death from the George Washington Bridge. It was just days after his roommate allegedly displayed live video on the internet of Clementi romantically engaged with anoth...
In recent years, Southeast Asian families in Minnesota and California were bombarded by this come-on: Win two free tickets to Laos.
Not Disneyland. Not DisneyWorld. Laos. The homeland. Let’s go!
The catch? Just refinance your home with a new variable rate, interest only loan—the kind of loan that ...
I’m shocked that the National Association of Black Journalists has decided to pull out of Unity, the coalition of media professionals that always reminded me of the true purpose of being a journalist of color.
As always, dollars are at the bottom of the pull out.
I remember going to the first Unit...
Simon Tam is both the manager and the bass player of a rock group known as The Slants.
Are you offended yet?
Tam, 30, came up with the idea for an Asian American, 80s dance-rock band four years ago. With members of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino descent, his band is a Pan Asian Flock o...
Is there anything more ridiculous than the notion of war as a humanitarian mission?
I suppose it depends on if you’re the bomber or the bombed upon.
As I heard President Obama lay down his justification for military action in Libya the other night, I wondered if I understood what he was saying. Wa...
I wish they hadn’t taken down that YouTube video of the now ex-UCLA coed who created a Sheen-like commotion last week with her anti-Asian rant.
It was so perfect as the look of fresh, modern unconscious racism. It was the girl next door channeling Archie Bunker. Except Archie Bunker’s a fiction, Al...
As a senior host for NPR’s “All Things Considered” from 1989-1991, I was one of the first Asian Americans to regularly anchor a national news program when I co-hosted the weekends with Lynn Neary.
Some of my favorite memories involve the handwritten and very personal notes I’d receive from listener...
While the media was all agog giving airtime to Charlie Sheen last week, you had to look pretty hard to find coverage of something far more important to society: the gross and unfair treatment of federal court nominee Goodwin Liu.
Liu has a name Sheen would admire (if it is all about “winning,” Liu ...
Full disclosure right up front: Years ago before the first tech crash, I worked with David Chiu at Grassroots.com. I was a mere VP of webcasting. One of the big benefactors said I would be the next Larry King.
I guess he hadn’t yet heard of Piers Morgan.
The real problem was the iPod hadn’t been i...
