A new book, “Corky Lee’s Asian America,” edited by the artist Chee Wang Ng and the historian Mae Ngai, collects hundreds of pictures that Lee shot from the early nineteen-seventies to the end of his life. It also includes essays from scholars, family members, writers, artists, friends, and activists. “In endless frames of film,” Renee Tajima-Peña, a filmmaker and a professor at U.C.L.A., writes, “he gave us the gift of our collective memory."
Corazon "Cory" Aquino, the first female president of the #Philippines, emerged as a prominent figure during the 1986 #PeoplePowerRevolution, which ended Ferdinand Marcos’ 20-year dictatorship and restored democracy in the country.
"The Hollywood Reporter spoke with eight of The Sympathizer’s Vietnamese cast members in a group conversation below that revealed that, although they all share the same ethnicity, they are diverse in age, nationality and experience, together forming a living account of the modern Vietnamese diaspora — what it has been through, and what it is like now."
"Chinese American voters in the city have long supported Chinese American candidates, but that may be starting to change.
In recent elections, Chinese American politicians, who’ve tended to be more progressive, haven’t always won the support of increasingly moderate-leaning Chinese American voters galvanized during the pandemic due to anti-Asian hate, concerns about street conditions and crime, and public school closures."
This month, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting commemorates Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by honoring the rich history, culture, and perspectives of these communities.
"Asian Americans are the least likely group to feel strongly that they belong in the U.S. Asian Americans are also least likely to feel strongly that they are accepted in the U.S.
38% of Asian Americans completely agree that they belong, while only 18% completely agree that they are accepted in the U.S. for their racial identity."
"Last Saturday, I was at a community gathering of around 30 Vietnamese immigrants, all in their 50s and 60s, in Oakland, California, when I asked if anyone knew anything about AI or artificial intelligence.
None of them had ever heard of it...And in this room full of elders from my community, the Vietnamese community, no one knew about it, which meant no one knew to look for it."
"NHLBI has launched an epidemiological cohort that focuses on these populations. It is called MOSAAIC, which stands for Multi-ethnic Observational Study in American Asian and Pacific Islander Communities...It’s also one that’s urgently needed, said Yuling Hong...'Research on these understudied groups can help eliminate disparities and advance health equity in ways never seen before.'"
"Nguyen, who is an executive producer, and the creative team hope the series will force viewers to center the Vietnamese perspective of the conflict while rethinking fundamental American myths, including about how the country still wields its geopolitical power in a fractured world today. 'Everything that the United States was doing in 1975 are things that are still happening now,' Nguyen says."
"In May 2021, Thorpe had issued a formal apology for Antioch’s mistreatment of early Chinese immigrants, including the torching of Chinatown and driving out its residents, which has been documented by local newspapers and historians. Thorpe’s actions led to major cities like San Jose, Los Angeles and San Francisco passing similar resolutions."
"The lawmakers — Nguyen and Reps. Hoa Nguyen, Hai Pham, Khanh Pham and Thuy Tran — who are all Democrats, wrote that the code, as it stands, is discriminatory and unfair, particularly to more vulnerable communities.
'We believe that, as currently written and enforced, the city’s odor code is discriminatory and not objective by any known standards, leaving out certain, minority-owned small businesses,' the lawmakers wrote."
"The 17-minute documentary takes an intimate look at the unique sisterhood between Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó, Wang’s paternal and maternal grandmothers. The pair initially met because of Wang’s parents and took a particular liking to each other. They became close after the deaths of their husbands, and eventually they chose to live together."
"The newspaper Willamette Week reports that Pho Gabo, a Portland Vietnamese restaurant, closed one of its locations because of complaints from an anonymous neighbor about the restaurant's smell.
'Due to the city’s and the neighborhood’s complaints about the smell of the food that we grill and the foods that we serve customers we are temporarily closing this location,' read a sign taped to Pho Gabo's door."
"More than half of Asian New Yorkers were on the receiving end of race-related hate in 2023, and fewer than half of those people reported the incidents to anyone, according to a new survey published Thursday.
Fifty-four percent of respondents to the survey by The Asian American Foundation said they 'experienced either insults, harassments, threats, or physical attacks in the past 12 months,'...”
"When Dr. Michelle Au ran for State Senate in Georgia in 2020, an experienced political operative told her: 'Don’t waste too much time talking to Asian voters. They don’t vote.'...Dr. Au, a Democrat, became the first Asian American woman to be elected to the State Senate...'People really started to realize that there is a large and growing and quite powerful Asian electorate in Georgia...' said Dr. Au..."
"Let me be clear. There is no yellow peril. Authors of colour have not stolen book deals from white authors. The opposite remains the case. White authors are more likely to achieve higher advances than authors of colour. White authors are more likely to hit the bestseller list. My back-of-the-envelope calculations on The Sunday Times Bestsellers List Top 100 Sellers of 2022 show that 89% were white authors. Only 7% were authors of colour."
"His campaign invested time and resources to communicate with the district’s diverse population of Asian Americans, who make up the fastest-growing demographic in the city, state and the nation. While it may not be surprising that a more targeted approach to different ethnic communities yielded better results for Suozzi, that strategy hasn't often been part of state Democrats' campaign playbook."
"“Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó,” Wang’s deeply charming portrait of his grandmothers, is nominated for best documentary short at the Academy Awards. In it, Wang films Yi and Chang going about their daily lives with bits of playfulness mixed in. They arm wrestle. They play dress-up. They watch “Superbad.” But mostly,...[the film] captures the joy of two spirited ladies in older age as they occasionally chide their grandson’s attempts to turn them into movie stars."
Today is the "Day of Remembrance" of FDR's (U.S. President during WW II) Executive Order 9066 authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, signed Feb. 19, 1942.
“As a nation, we must face the wrongs of our past in order to build a more just and equitable future. The Interior Department has the tremendous honor of stewarding America’s public lands and natural and cultural resources to tell a complete and honest story of our nation’s history,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
"In hindsight, I wish my father had instilled a deeper appreciation of Tet and our Vietnamese culture within our family. Yet, I comprehend his rationale. Perhaps he thought the beauty of this Vietnamese holiday – and the depth of our collective history and story – would be lost on us in the small predominantly white towns we resided in.
Only through returning to Vietnam...could I truly understand and experience the essence of Tet."
"That night, the local spinoff of the “Big Brother” franchise aired the premiere of its latest season. Argentine television watchers were processing their surprise: For the first time in the hit show’s 11-season run, the cast of houseguests included an Asian contestant in the form of 24-year-old Martín Ku, the son of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants.
It was a seminal moment for Asian Argentine representation in mainstream media."
"A beloved Asian American-owned bookstore in Manhattan’s Chinatown has reopened months after a fire gutted the small independent shop last summer.
On July 4, a residential unit above the bookshop caught fire, killing one of the building’s residents. The resulting smoke and water damage also devastated Yu & Me Books, destroying almost all of its inventory and equipment..."
"Little Saigon, a business corridor established 20 years ago to highlight the vibrant Vietnamese and wider Southeast Asian American community in the heart of the city, is now fighting to survive.
Late last year, the closure of Turtle Tower, a famed pho restaurant on Larkin Street, was a major blow to the area. The storefront joined more than a dozen vacancies on a two-block stretch of Larkin Street between Eddy and O’Farrell."
“What we’re hearing from some teachers is that they often struggle with getting students to understand the standards because the materials they’re using, the texts that they’re using, are either abstract, or have a different relevance, and so there’s an added sort of translational work that needs to happen in the classroom to talk about how to get to the standards and learning objectives,” Chang said.