February 21 - April 1 at JACCC's Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo.
Los Angeles! Don't miss your chance to see the Broadway musical Allegiance, now on stage in Little Tokyo.
Inspired by true events, and starring George Takei, Allegiance is the story of the Kimura family, whose lives are upended when they and 120,000 other Japanese Americans are forced to leave their homes following the events of Pearl Harbor. An uplifting testament to the human spirit, Allegiance follows the Kimuras as they fight between duty and defiance, custom and change, family bonds and forbidden loves.
Presented by East West Players and the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, the Los Angeles premiere of Allegiance is running now through April 1 at JACCC's Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo, with the Opening Night performance and reception on February 28.
'Order 9066' from American Public Media and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Hear the voices and stories of Japanese American Incarceration from the real people who endured it.
Order 9066 is a landmark new podcast series that chronicles the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II. Through vivid, first-person accounts from those who lived through it, the series explores how this shocking violation of American democracy came to pass, and its legacy in the present.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 just months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Roughly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes and sent to one of ten "relocation centers," imprisoned behind barbed wire during the war. Two-thirds of them were American citizens.
Produced by American Public Media in collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, the series launched on February 19 -- the anniversary of the executive order's signing.
Asian-American Women In Hollywood Say It's Twice As Hard For Them To Say #MeToo
Harvey Weinstein's fall from power may have opened the floodgates in Hollywood, but Asian American actors and producers say a lack of representation makes it harder for them to speak up. Asian American women in Hollywood say it's twice as hard for them to say #MeToo.
Dining in the Japanese Internment Camps
Laurel Fujii talks to her grandaunt Eiko, who recalls the drastic lifestyle, diet and dining habits that ruptured the Japanese American family and culture during World War II.
Asian American Medical Students Still Face Discrimination
A recent study suggests that minority medical students are significantly less likely than white medical students to be members of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society, which may affect future opportunities.
‘Annihilation’ and Hollywood’s Erasure of Asians
The creatives behind the film Annihilation can explain why two characters were cast as white women. But the time for excusing Hollywood's continued erasure of Asians must end.
In the illustrious Hollywood tradition of movies about white dudes who are better at being Asian than actual Asians, here's your first look at the Yakuza period thriller The Outsider, in which Jared Leto becomes a Japanese gangster. Wait, whaaat? Yup. The Netflix original movie follows a white guy who works his way up the ranks to become a rare non-Japanese member of the fearsome Yakuza.
The official synopsis reads: "Set in post-WWII Japan, an imprisoned American soldier (Leto) is released with the help of his Yakuza cellmate. Now free, he sets out to earn their respect and repay his debt while navigating the dangerous criminal underworld." I assume this means that the white guy will do a lot of way crazier shit than any of the Japanese guys, to prove his worth. And romance some Japanese ladies along the way, of course.
Also: The snowboarding champ finds out she's on a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. (It's adorable.)
Chloe Kim is everywhere. Even on your cereal box. Fresh off her gold medal win at the PyeongChang winter games, the 17-year-old Olympic halfpipe snowboarder stopped by Wednesday night's episode of The Tonight Show Fallon Five, the five-minute Olympics broadcast version of Jimmy Fallon's late night talk show.
Now that she's America's snowboard sweetheart, Chloe took the opportunity to have some fun with her newfound fame. She and Fallon went down to NBC Studios to photobomb unsuspecting fans who were taking photos at 30 Rockefeller Center. While tourists posed on an Olympic-style mock medal podium, Kim and Fallon snuck up behind them to crash their pics with goofy poses. Surprise!
Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.
What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. Each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I host an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.
On this very special Olympics episode, we welcome Hannah -- Phil's sister - fresh off the plane from South Korea, where she attended the Winter Games in PyeongChang. From triple axels to twizzles to mctwists, we discuss the Olympic triumphs and trials of Team Asian America.
15-year-old Peter Wang, a JROTC cadet, was shot repeatedly while holding a door open to let others escape.
From CNN: Peter Wang, a 15-year-old JROTC cadet, died in last week's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. According to his friends, he was shot repeatedly while holding a door open to let other people escape.
"His selfless and heroic actions have led to the survival of dozens in the area. Wang died a hero, and deserves to be treated as such, and deserves a full honors military burial," reads the petition. As of Monday afternoon, it had more than 25,000 signatures.
Hoboken mayor Ravi Bhalla says death threats have been made against him and his family.
From NJ.com: Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla is publicly acknowledging death threats that have made against him and his family.
In a statement issued Friday afternoon following a security breach at City Hall Thursday, Bhalla said he and his family have been threatened and that the city is working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force to improve security at City Hall.
"This incident, along with death threats to me and my family, is an unfortunate reminder that we need to take security seriously," Bhalla said.
Chloe Kim Is Proof There's No Definable Way To Be Asian-American
"With her blond streaks and love of tteokbokki, she's resolved the messy confusion of being a hyphenate in part by choosing not to resolve it all." Everyone's favorite golden girl, Korean-American Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, has all at once become a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Inside the halfpipe finals with Chloe Kim's Korean family
Nearly a decade after Chloe Kim's dad quit his job to help get her to the Olympics, he finally got to see his "American dream" win the gold medal in the snowboarding halfpipe in PyeongChang.
The Spelling Bee
When Snap Judgment producer Davey Kim was in eighth grade, he went to the regional level spelling bee with his best friend...and took R-E-V-E-N-G-E.
* * *
The Forgotten Zine of 1960s Asian-American Radicals
For a group of leftist Asian American students at UCLA, establishing an Asian American identity took more than meetings -- it took a magazine. A look back at Gidra.
Actor Douglas Kim won $2.4 million playing poker. Now he's betting on himself.
In 2006, Douglas Kim, a newly minted Duke University economics graduate, became the youngest player at 22 to earn a spot at the final table at the World Series of Poker. He won $2.4 million. Now he's using his winnings to try to beat the odds in Hollywood.
"I'm an optimist at heart and a cynic in the head."
Hey, everybody! It is time, once again, to meet the Angry Reader of the Week, spotlighting you, the very special readers of this website. Over the years, I've been able to connect with a lot of cool folks, and this is a way of showing some appreciation and attention to the people who help make this blog what it is. This week's Angry Reader is Derek Nguyen.
Sports was never my thing. In high school gym class, I would always be the last person to be picked for a team. No one wanted me. I was too fat. Too slow. And I was uncomfortable in my body. The jocks called me queer for being effeminate.
But, today, I’m captivated by the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang. They show us how we can be all of who we are—that we can live our lives authentically and achieve our fullest potential in whatever we do. They also remind me that the world is still a dangerous place to be LGBTQ.
When gunfire started, Parkland math teacher Shanthi Viswanathan kept a cool head.
From the Sun-Sentinel: "Mrs. V" knew something wasn't right when the second fire alarm of the day sounded shortly before classes were to end at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.
Rather than let her Algebra II students out, Shanthi Viswanathan made them get on the floor in the corner of the room. But first she put paper over the window in the class door so no one could see in.
Her actions probably saved her students, said Dawn Jarboe, whose son Brian was in the class.
Barstool Radio's Patrick Connor called the 17-year-old snowboarder "a little hot piece of ass."
From Yahoo! Sports: When you're a grown man and call a 17-year-old Olympic gold medalist "a little hot piece of ass," things likely won't end too well for you.
Patrick Connor has lost at least one of his jobs after making that comment about American snowboarder Chloe Kim on Tuesday, when he was on "Dialed In with Dallas Braden," a show on Barstool Radio's SiriusXM channel.
On Wednesday, San Francisco radio station KNBR, where Connor is known as "PCon," fired him.
KNBR program director Jeremiah Crowe told media outlets, "Be advised that Patrick Connor is no longer with Cumulus Media," which owns the station.
Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.
What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. Each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I host an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.
On this Valentine's Day-themed episode, we welcome Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed -- activist, storyteller, and co-host of the #GoodMuslimBadlimPodcast. We talk about romantic comedies, Muslim Valentine's Day Cards, and that time Taz brought a fake date to an ex's wedding.
Perpetual Foreigner stereotype alert: shortly after US figure skater Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to land a triple axel in an Olympic competition, New York Times Opinion section editor Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) tweeted "Immigrants: they get the job done," a line from Hamilton.
The implication from Weiss' tweet was obvious: Nagasu should be celebrated as an American immigrant. One problem, though: Nagasu was born in Montebello, California. And yet, for Weiss, the place of Nagasu's birth doesn't seem to matter: instead, the colour of her skin appears to have marked Nagasu as foreign.
Why is it that American media personalities commenting on the Winter Olympics can never seem to remember that Asian Americans are American, too? Let's not forget the infamous headline: in 1998, MSNBC published a headline declaring that "American Beats Out Kwan," implying that US figure skater Michelle Kwan wasn't an American. Now again, a mainstream media commentator can't seem to figure out that Mirai Nagasu isn't an immigrant.
Greetings, good readers of this website. Today is Valentine's Day, and I hope you observe or ignore it in whatever way you see fit. I just wanted to note that today, by complete coincidence, also happens to officially mark the 17th anniversary of Angry Asian Man. Seventeen! Pretty sure I did the math right.
On this day, seventeen years ago, I cranked the knob that launched the very first iteration of this blog, in all its rough, rudimentary splendor. I had no idea that it would become a "thing." I had no idea where it would take me. And I had no idea it would become my professional and personal calling. But here we are.
I do this little commemoration every year, and every year, I still shake my head and ask myself, how did I get here? The answer is you, the awesome circle of friends and followers that have rallied around this little blog, encouraged by passion and fueled this little project, day by day and post by post over the last seventeen years. This hustle is not easy, dear readers, but you've kept it going, and I'm grateful.
17-year-old snowboarder wins gold in the Olympic women's halfpipe.
As was foretold in the ancient texts, Chloe Kim fulfilled her destiny as snowboarding's golden girl, wowing the world, 1080ing into our hearts and snatching a gold medal from the sky. Everyone expected it, but still, nobody was ready. On Tuesday morning in PyeongChang, the 17-year-old snowboarder from Southern California, all smiles, won gold in the women's halfpipe. And she made it look easy.
Her first run set an extremely high bar, landing a backside air, frontside 1080, cab 720, frontside 900, McTwist and frontside inverted 720. (I have no idea what exactly these terms mean -- I just know they variously allude to awesome high-flying flippy things.) That run earned her a top score of 93.75, giving her a huge lead over the rest of the field... and eventually, the gold medal -- we just didn't quite know it yet.
She is the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics.
See that face? That's the fierce, fiery "fuck yeah!" you get to proclaim, right there in the middle of ice, when you make history. On Sunday, figure skater Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, helping the U.S. secure the bronze medal in team figure skating.
Nagasu, who landed the notoriously difficult jump in the first minute of her routine, joins Midori Ito and Mao Asada as the only women to ever complete the triple axel in Olympic competition. The judges rewarded her with a personal-best and season-best score of 137.53.
Kid Fearless
For snowboard star Chloe Kim, dropping into the halfpipe is far less daunting than grasping how to be American and Korean at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming
Andrew Yang, a well-connected New York businessman, is mounting a longer-than-long-shot bid for the White House in 2020. He is likely the only candidate who will be focusing on the coming robot apocalypse.
* * *
#DesiWallofShame Targets the Trump Faithful
South Asian Americans are well-represented in the Trump administration, and that infuriates some members of the community, which overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton. And so the Desi Wall of Shame was born.
Hello, internet friends. Gather 'round, because it is time, once again, to meet the Angry Reader of the Week, spotlighting you, the very special readers of this website. Over the years, I've been able to connect with a lot of cool folks, and this is a way of showing some appreciation and attention to the people who help make this blog what it is. This week's Angry Reader is Yvonne Hana Yi.
Hung Phuoc Nguyen is wanted on two counts of theft by unlawful taking.
An amateur hand-drawn sketch helped investigators identify a suspect accused of theft at a Pennsylvania farmers market. Take a good look at that sketch, then look at the suspect's mug shot. I know. Awesome.
According to police, Hung Phuoc Nguyen pretended to be an employee at a stand inside Central Market in Lancaster. When an actual employee stepped away, Nguyen took cash from a customer then ran off.
A witness provided a rough sketch -- really rough sketch -- of the suspect to officers. The drawing, along with the physical description, somehow helped remind investigators of a potential suspect.
The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea kick off on Friday. Of the 244 athletes representing Team USA in 15 disciplines across seven sports, 14 are Asian American, competing in figure skating, snowboarding and speed skating. And some are serious contenders for gold. (Did we mention the fact that half of the U.S. figure skating team is Asian American?) Here they are, representing Team Asian America. [UPDATE: Team Asian America's athlete count in PyeongChang has been bumped up to include long track speed skater Jerica Tandiman and Chris Kinney of the men's bobsled team.]
Gene Luen Yang joins the roster of DC Comics' new imprints aimed at young readers.
Battling racists? This is a job for Superman! DC Comics recently announced two new youth-oriented original graphic novel imprints, DC Ink, which will focus on young adult readers, and DC Zoom, which will focus on middle grade readers. Both imprints will feature work by an acclaimed, all-star roster of talent, but one title in particular caught our attention: Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang.
There's not a lot to go on yet, outside of DC's press release, but the title alone instantly conjures up imagery of the Man of Steel punching out white hooded assholes. And that's kind of fun. Story-wise, it might be the kind of thing that gives you pause -- racism is real; will these themes be handles with some sensitivity?
Then you see that Gene Luen Yang is writing it, and it's allllll good. That's all I need to know.
"If anyone can make a bold statement with Superman, it is Gene Yang," Michele Wells, the vice president for content strategy at DC, told The New York Times.
Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.
What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. Each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I host an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.
On this very special episode, recorded live last month at the David Henry Hwang Theater, we join playwright Alice Tuan and actress Amy Hill for a panel discussion, "Asian American Representation: The Politics of Casting," presented by Center Theatre Group and East West Players.
Making Fun of How South Asians Talk: A History: Donald Trump's reported mockery of Narendra Modi's accent is a disturbing reminder of the long tradition of using "brown voice" for caricature.
* **
It Takes More than Grit: Reframing Asian American Academic Achievement: Sociologist Jennifer Lee calls for the disaggregation of the category of “Asian" to explore how class and geographic differences can both end the model minority myth and help affect meaningful policy change for many groups.
Q&A: Thi Bui: Thi Bui's graphic memoir The Best We Could Do is a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award in autobiography. For this Reading Women podcast, Bui talks about her writing process and the importance of reading stories from refugees.
Manny Jacinto Is No Dummy - He Just Plays One on The Good Place: In The Good Place, Jason Mendoza is the show's sweetest (and funniest and dumbest) character. In real life, for Manny Jacinto, it turns out playing an idiot means taking your role very seriously.
"I am always on the lookout for stories that we have not heard about or are still in the margins."
Hello, good people of the internet! It is time, once again, to meet the Angry Reader of the Week, spotlighting you, the very special readers of this website. Over the years, I've been able to connect with a lot of cool folks, and this is a way of showing some appreciation and attention to the people who help make this blog what it is. This week's Angry Reader is David Magdael.
Super Bowl commercial pays tribute to the sacrifices of snowboarder Chloe Kim's dad.
Behind so many great athletes, there's a parent who made a thousand sacrifices. In the case of 17-year-old champion snowboarder Chloe Kim, it was her dad Jong-Jin Kim, whose love and dedication to his Olympic-bound daughter are highlighted in this moving Super Bowl commercial for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
And whooo, it tugs at the heartstrings.
In the 60-second spot, set to Ray Charles' rendition of "America the Beautiful," we see Mr. Kim arriving late to pick up Chloe for snowboarding practice. We later seen him leave his job in order to support his daughter's snowboarding career full time. After that, he's there every step of the way, from practice to rides to competition.
The commercial closes with Chloe driving home from a competition, with her father happily asleep in the passenger seat, holding her trophy. Damn, I'm getting a little choked up while just writing about it.
