An Open Letter to the Creators of Disney's Live-Action Feature Film 'The Legend of Mulan'

Guest Post by ConcernedForMulan



A white merchant's business brings him to the heart of a legendary Asian conflict -- he unwittingly helps save the day while winning the heart of the Asian female. Am I describing the plotline of the Netflix series Marco Polo? No. I'm describing the spec script that Disney bought for its live-action feature film, The Legend of Mulan, which is projected for release in 2018.

As an Asian American person in the industry, I am furious after reading this script. I am writing this letter anonymously so all the fans anticipating this remake will know how problematic it is in its current form. We must urge the creators of Disney's live-action Mulan to reconsider the story before the film goes into production.

The 1998 Disney animated classic focused on Mulan's transition from being a young girl failing to fit the mold of a perfect daughter and wife to a heroine whose brave acts ultimately save ancient China. Her determination allows her to rise above the gender expectations of her culture and become the one who brings "honor to us all." Hers is essentially an Asian American tale because it fused Asian characters and culture with a coming-of-age hero's journey that resonated with American audiences.

So why does the script for the live-action remake feature a white male lead?

Start a Conversation with Letters for Black Lives

An Open Letter Project on Anti-Blackness



Letters for Black Lives is a set of crowdsourced, multilingual and culturally-aware resources aimed at creating a space for open and honest conversations about racial justice, police violence, and anti-Blackness in our families and communities. The project started out as an intergenerational note from Asian American children to their parents, voicing concerns and support for the Black community.

The goal was to create a starting point for difficult conversations. "Talking about race and police violence in Asian communities has always been difficult," said Christina Xu, one of the letter's lead organizers. "There are language and cultural barriers, media access issues and unresolved distrust between communities."

The letter first appeared as a Google Doc last Thursday, July 7 and has attracted contributions from hundreds of people around the world, ballooning into an international, multilingual project spanning translations in over thirty languages and dialects, as well as additional versions spoken from the perspectives of other communities who share similar concerns (Latinx, Canadians, African Immigrants, among others).

Many more are now building on the project with their own voices through audio, video and images.

An Open Letter to Our Asian American Families About Black Lives Matter

Hundreds come together to create a multi-lingual resource to talk about anti-Blackness and police violence.



Sometimes, believe it or not, the internet works together for good. That's what happened this week in the wake of news that yet another Black man, Philando Castile, had been killed by police during a traffic stop in Minnesota, following the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by police officers in Louisiana.

On Thursday, hundreds of Asian American internet users came together and organized via Google Docs -- YES, GOOGLE DOCS -- to draft a crowdsourced open letter to our own Asian American families addressing the shootings Castile and Sterling and the urgent issues of the Black Lives Matter movement.

It can be difficult to find the words and contexts to talk about these issues with our Asian parents and relatives. Sometimes there are language barriers. Sometimes it's hard to explain the common ground in our struggles. Too often there's simply the impulse to ignore another community's struggles and look the other way.

The letter aims to help start that conversation. It began as a series of tweets from Christina Xu, who'd seen how Asian Americans had reacted negatively to previous police shootings of black Americans -- particularly, the shooting of Akai Gurley in New York City -- and wanted to do something proactive to change their perspectives.

Dear Cable News Networks: AAPIs Are Tired of Your Bullshit.

An open letter regarding the persistent underrepresntation of AAPIs on MSNBC, CNN and FOX News.



A coalition of prominent Asian American and Pacific Islander civic and civil rights organizations has united to deliver an open letter to MSNBC, CNN and Fox News -- the country's three largest providers of cable news -- demanding that the networks address the persistent underrepresentation of the AAPI community in their programming.

The coalition's letter, organized by the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans and Reappropriate, responds to recent incidents that involve news hosts and guests who made disparaging remarks about the AAPI community on air. The letter highlights research by Media Matters that shows that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up less than 3% of invited nightly news or Sunday morning political talk show guests, even though AAPIs are nearly 7% of the United States population.

"Networks need to ensure that Asian American and Pacific Islander voices and perspectives are heard and that issues of importance to our communities are discussed," said NCAPA National Director Christopher Kang. "If we are invisible in the media, racial slurs and inaccurate portrayals of AAPIs will persist, but when Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are better represented -- in particular, in the news--it allows for a more diverse understanding across all communities. All Americans -- including AAPIs -- deserve more accurate representation in our media."

An Open Letter about Orlando from Asian American Parents Who Love Our LGBTQ Kids

Cross-Posted from NQAPIA


Dear Community,

We, the Asian American Parents Who Love Our LGBTQ Kids, are heartbroken about the Orlando tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, both given and chosen, especially their parents. Our thoughts are with those who were injured and are still fighting for their lives and those who are suffering emotional trauma. Our hearts go out to our LGBTQ community that is shaken by this horrible news and the loss of their friends and community members, particularly in the Latina/o community.

We support our LGBTQ children and we are proud of who they are. However, we are concerned because we know this world is not 100% safe for them. We condemn this type of unthinkable, senseless violence against the LGBTQ community. Our children are not people to be extinguished, they are loved and cherished and deserve to live their lives fully without hatred and bigotry.

We also stand in solidarity with Muslim families, especially parents with queer Muslim children. Many of our South Asian families are from Muslim backgrounds and they are our siblings in this fight against homophobia and transphobia. Our hearts are with our LGBTQ South Asian and Muslim community members who are reeling in pain from yesterday's attack and feeling the combined pain of Islamophobia, homophobia, and racism. We stand in solidarity with you.

An Open Letter: Why Co-opting "Transracial" in the Case of Rachel Dolezal is Problematic

Please direct all media inquiries to Kimberly McKee, PhD at mckee.kimberly@gmail.com.



This past weekend the world took to social media to dissect the events surrounding Rachel Dolezal, the former president of Spokane's NAACP chapter who came under heavy scrutiny for falsely representing herself as black. As part of this real-time discussion, the term transracial is being co-opted to describe Dolezal identifying as black despite being born white.

As members of the adoption community -- particularly those of us who identify as transracial adoptees -- we are deeply alarmed by the gross mischaracterization of this term. We find the misuse of "transracial," describing the phenomenon of a white woman assuming perceived markers of "blackness" in order to pass as "black," to be erroneous, ahistorical, and dangerous.

AAPIs stand up for equal opportunity in higher education

Over 120 AAPI organizations and individuals sign on to national open letter in support of affirmative action.



More than 120 Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community organizations and individuals across the country have signed on to a national open letter, released Thursday, strongly supporting affirmative action, racial justice and equal opportunity for all in higher education.

The letter dispels myths about race-sensitive admissions policies and calls out recent "misguided, misleading tactics" attacking equal opportunity. "Our universities should reflect our diverse democracy and expand opportunities for those students who have overcome significant barriers," the letter reads. "Rather than letting ourselves be divided, we must come together to ensure increased opportunities and success for all students."

Here's the full text of the letter:

Open Letter from AAPIs calls for #justiceforakaigurley

More than 50 AAPI groups release letter supporting justice for Akai Gurley and indictment of Officer Peter Liang



More than fifty Asian American and Pacific Islander groups from around the country have signed on to an open letter, organized by CAAAV, calling for justice in the fatal police shooting of Akai Gurley, an unarmed, Black, 28-year-old father who was killed by NYPD Officer Peter Liang last fall. The letter follows calls coming from some members of the Asian American community to drop charges against Liang.

Officer Liang was conducting a vertical patrol on November 20, 2014 in the Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York when he fired a shot that killed Gurley, who was visiting the home of his girlfriend.

The letter has been signed by AAPI community organizations and leaders representing diverse constituencies across all regions of the United States, calling for "#JusticeforAkaiGurley and for the systemic overhaul of policing practices and other institutional policies that chronically defund and destabilize Black communities."

The letter also condemns calls from members of the Asian American community for the charges against Officer Liang dropped. CAAAV Executive Director Cathy Dang calls these efforts "divisive, hurtful, and misguided."

"We should all be standing with Akai's family, who have lost a beloved brother, son, and father, and should be fighting to reform policing practices so that more families won't have to suffer the pain they are going through."

Here's the text of the letter:

Sign on for police accountability and #JusticeforAkaiGurley

CAAAV's national open letter calls on Asian American support for police shooting victim.



CAAAV, a grassroots community organization that fights for poor and working class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in New York City, has drafted a national open letter supporting justice for Akai Gurley and calling for Officer Peter Liang to be held accountable for Gurley's shooting death last November.

They're calling on APA organizations and individuals to stand with them and sign on to the letter to show that there is support in the Asian American community for #JusticeforAkaiGurley and for the broader national movement against police violence.

Here's the text of the open letter:

An Open Letter to Asian American TV Watchers

'Fresh On The Air' by Jeff Yang and Louie Chin



The premiere of Fresh Off The Boat is almost upon us. It's been widely touted as the first Asian American family on network television in over twenty years, and that is a big a deal. Among other milestones, the show heralds the screen debut of Hudson Yang, the eldest son of my good friend Jeff Yang, as young Eddie Huang. So you could say this is a pretty big week for the Yang family.

The show's already getting great reviews. Here, Jeff makes an appeal -- as Asian American culture watcher, and as a proud dad -- asking you to give Fresh Off The Boat a chance. An open letter in comic form:

How to Stage Your Show Without Being Super Racist

Some "friendly unsolicited pointers" for the Lantern Theater Company's production of 'Julius Caesar'



In Philadelphia, the Lantern Theater Company is currently wrapping up the run of its annual Shakespearean offering, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. This time, they've put a twist on the great tragedy by changing up the Roman Republic and setting the play in medieval Japan. That's great, except there isn't a whole lot in this production that's legitimately Japanese -- most notably, a glaring lack of Japanese actors.

Japanese Actor Makoto Hirano Calls Lantern Theater's Julius Caesar Racist

Dance theater artist (and actual Japanese person) Makoto Hirano saw the play, and it did not sit well with him. So he drafted a letter to the Lantern Theater Company outlining some "friendly unsolicited pointers" on How to Stage Your Show Without Being Super Racist. PROTIP: "DON'T say you were inspired by feudal Japan and then not cast any Japanese actors." Seems like that should have been a big one.

Here's Hirano's full letter, hand-delivered to the Lantern staff last week:

To the asshole who broke into Steven Yeun's car

While you were watching The Walking Dead, somebody stole Steven Yeun's backpack.



On Sunday night, Steven Yeun, who plays your favorite Asian American zombie apocalypse survivor Glenn on the hit AMC drama, shared an Instagram photo of his car's busted window, through which someone stole his backpack. Its precious stolen contents included a laptop, a camera, a book and a notebook full of "dumb ideas." In an eloquent open letter, Steven addressed the "asshole" thief:

An Open Letter from the Asian American Community to the Evangelical Church

On cultural insensitivity and reconciliation in the church



This has been a long time coming... Recent incidents of repeated, offensive racial stereotyping of Asians in the evangelical Christian church have compelled a group of Asian American leaders to come together and speak out against this growing gap in the church's understanding and pursuit of racial reconciliation.

I've covered a number of these incidents here over the years, from VBS curriculum, to youth skits, to general Christian trade books, in which Asians have been mocked, caricatured and stereotyped in the name of... I don't know what. Jesus? I didn't see a whole lot of Jesus in any of those things.

Most recently, well-known Christian leader Rick Warren posted an image of a Chinese Red Guard on Facebook, in a failed attempt at humor. When it was pointed out why this imagery might be culturally insensitive, he was dismissive, ultimately issuing one of those perfunctory sorry-if-you-were-offended non-apologies.

And last week at Exponential West, a popular Christian conference attended by thousands, programming included a video featuring a white person mimicking Asian accents and kung fu fighting (do I really have to describe this further?), prompting criticism from Asian American attendees. Organizers have since apologized and promised to remove the video from future conference content.

All of this, and the mounting concern over the church's troubling treatment of Asian Americans and Asian culture, have prompted leaders to draft and post An Open Letter to the Evangelical Church from the Asian American Community, to draw awareness and dialogue to the situation.

Here's the letter: