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Kristi Yamaguchi: Making Asian American Sports History 20 Years Before, Well, You Know Who

  • February 21, 2012 9:55 pm

Twenty years ago today on February 21, 1992, Kristi Yamaguchi became the first Asian American to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the ladies singles category. Her performance brought her worldwide celebrity and an immense sense of pride within the Asian American community. Not unlike another Asian American athlete experiencing his own fair share of worldwide celebrity and Asian American pride at the moment.

But sadly some things haven’t changed much in 20 years. China may represent the growing “yellow peril” these days, but back in 1992, it was Japan in the role of the threatening Asian superpower. And Yamaguchi wasn’t immune from the ensuing racist backlash against Japan.

In the aftermath of her Olympic victory, there was much talk of how her Japanese heritage would prevent her from winning commercial endorsements and if you thought some of the media’s reporting on Jeremy Lin has bordered on racism (“chink in the armor” anyone?), on the heels of her victory, the media criticized Yamaguchi for everything from not being able to speak Japanese to fellow Japanese figure skater Midori Ito (conveniently ignoring that Yamaguchi was an American, born in California) and taking the victory away from a “real” American (that would be fellow skater Tonya Harding).  Read more...

Korea Hearts Uneducated White Female English Teachers with Big Boobs

  • September 7, 2011 1:43 pm

There’s a long tradition of Americans and other Westerners working as English teachers in Asian countries like Korea. And with that comes certain occasional “controversies”…one of them being rumors that certain employers have a preference for hiring attractive white women with…uh… big Western tits specific qualifications.

Well, dedicated YOMYOMF reader Kurlykolly stumbled across the following posting on Seoul Craiglist from one such woman looking for a teaching job in Korea (click to see the full ad here until it gets taken down):

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Japanese American Porn Star Promises Free BJs After Japan’s World Cup Victory

  • July 25, 2011 12:01 am

Apparently, the wife of a certain troubled media mogul wasn’t the only Asian American woman last week who risked taking a faceful of cream for the team. Busty plus-size Japanese American porn star Kelly Shibari announced that she would give free blowjobs to anyone who could prove they were STD free if Japan won the World Cup. And guess what…

Japan won the World Cup.

And instead of finding a way to shy away from her words or exposing the whole thing as some sort of hoax as others in her position have done, Shibari has cum forward stepped up to honor her promise. She is currently in talks with web cam companies to decide who will broadcast the event and the blowjobs will be offered to anyone who can make it to L.A. on the designated TBD date with a clean bill of health.  Read more...

Movies That Should Have Starred Asians: It’s A Wonderful Life

  • December 21, 2010 12:01 am

There may be no other movie that’s more beloved at this time of year than Frank Capra’s 1946 holiday classic It’s A Wonderful Life. It’s hard to find any other director whose work better represented “traditional” American values than Capra and It’s A Wonderful Life may be the most American of any of his films: all-American James Stewart is George Bailey—an everyman living in the small town of Bedford Falls who sees his life as a failure and decides to commit suicide on Christmas Eve before heavenly intervention, in the form of angel-in-training Clarence, saves the day.

But when you closely examine the film, it’s easy to see how much its traditional Americana resembles the Asian American experience.

But first, a little background on the film. Based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story The Greatest Gift, It’s A Wonderful Life was met with mixed reviews and a weak box office return upon its initial release. Capra, who was one of Hollywood’s most successful directors with previous efforts like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, never fully recovered from his movie’s poor reception and his career never again reached the heights that it had in the past.

The story might have ended there, but a real-life Christmas miracle took place. Due to various factors, the copyright on the film was not renewed so during the 1970s and 1980s, anyone could air the movie or even release it on video without worrying about the rights. And they did…a lot, especially around the Christmas holidays. Because it was cheap and appropriate for the season, It’s A Wonderful Life played everywhere and anywhere during this time of year, but what happened because of that was more and more people re-discovered it, eventually making it the Christmas classic it is today.  Read more...

Mid-term Elections: Blame the Brown People

  • November 1, 2010 12:01 am

The mid-term elections are tomorrow and I know I’m not the only one who thinks this election cycle has been one of the nastiest on record—full of below-the-belt attacks and outright lies. Of course, race is a part of this, whether it’s the debate over illegal immigration to continued speculation about President Obama’s “Americanness.”

And arguably the biggest target in this regard might be South Asians, Muslims, Arab Americans or other “brown” folks who look like them. Just last week, the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) released a report entitled From Macacas to Turban Toppers: The Rise in Xenophobic and Racist Rhetoric in American Political Discourse (read the full document here). The report gathers examples of things American politicians have said or done that reveal that even our leaders have a long way to go toward tolerance and enlightenment.

While the report documents incidents starting from 2006, I thought on the eve of the election, I’d share some of the comments from just this year alone; touching on everything from the Park51 (“Ground Zero mosque”) controversy to South Asian political candidates. Check out this small sampling:

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Original Offenders: Christine Sterling

  • August 31, 2010 12:01 am

Los Angeles’ Chinatown is still one of the most vibrant ethnic communities in the country and holds the title as the first Chinese enclave in the United States “owned” by Chinese Americans. But the Chinatown that we know today may not have existed if it hadn’t been for a woman named Christine Sterling.

Sterling (1881-1963) was a Los Angeles socialite (a.k.a. wealthy white woman with time on her hands) who had a passion for local history. She once remarked: “Los Angeles will be forever marked a transient, Orphan city if she allows her roots to rot in a soil of impoverished neglect.”  Read more...

Being All-American Means Eating All That You Can Eat

  • July 26, 2010 12:16 am

TOM

Tom Huang is an indie filmmaker, as well as paying his bills as a writer, director and producer. His latest feature, Why Am I Doing This?, a multi-award-winning film about an Asian-Am guy and a African-Am guy failing in Hollywood, is now out everywhere on DVD, including amazon.com. The Boston Herald called it “a raucous look at life in Los Angeles for an actor,” while Tom’s mom said, “I don’t get it.” He is currently working on Unusual Targets with Harry Shum, Jr. from Glee, and is also trying to catch the first season of Mad Men on DVD because everyone says it’s so good.


Being American, and being Asian, I love seeing things that have fused the two, that shows how our increasingly diverse cultures in America have had sex and made a hapa child that is Asian in background, but totally American in it’s design. In this case, what do you get when you mix Asia and the American spirit? No, I’m not talking Keanu Reeves … I’m talking about the all-you-can-eat Asian food extravaganza.

I’m talkin’ the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ experience, where, for a set price, they give you all the various Korean marinated flesh from four different animals you can ask for (no sharing or take-outs, please), and then make you cook it all yourself on a table-top grill (who thought that up scam up? You pay so you can cook?). Or the Hong Kong buffet, where you pick from about 500,000 trays of Chinese food (including the real shit like chicken feet and rubbery cows parts), poorly prepared sushi made by a Chinese immigrant in a karate outfit, and a soft-serve ice milk ice cream machine that you can top with nuts, chocolate sauce and lychees.  Read more...

The Indian American Comedy Invasion!

  • May 27, 2010 12:10 am

Just a few years ago, it seemed as if the more prominent Asian American faces in Hollywood were more likely to be Korean American than not: John Cho (Star Trek), Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica), Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy), James Kyson Lee (Heroes), Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim (Lost), Rex Lee (Entourage), Leonardo Nam (Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants), Aaron Yoo (Disturbia), Justin Chon (Twilight) and my fellow Offender Sung, among others. But these days, the prominent Asian faces you’re likely to see are Indian American.

While most of the Korean American actors I mentioned above are mainly known for dramatic roles (though there are hilarious exceptions like Ken Jeong, Bobby Lee and Margaret Cho), the young Indian American actors coming up now are mostly making their marks in the world of comedy (more on this below). Following are some of these actors (and one new TV show):  Read more...

INTERPRETATIONS Short Film Spotlight: CAMBODIAN AMERICAN

  • May 22, 2010 12:01 am

As many of you already know, we’ve launched a new film initiative entitled INTERPRETATIONS to support aspiring filmmakers. In a nutshell, you make a short film of no more than 3 minutes using the same script we provide (get all the info here). To help us launch, we commissioned several filmmaker friends to make their own shorts using our script and we’ll be featuring each one of them (including a few words from the filmmakers themselves) over the course of the next two weeks.

Today we present Cambodian American by Emmy Award-winner Spencer Nakasako:

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Miss USA Is An Arab Terrorist?!

  • May 18, 2010 12:59 am

You may have heard that Rima Fakih, a 24-year-old Arab American, won the Miss USA title on Sunday. Not unexpectedly, in the hours immediately following her crowning, various bits of salacious news about Fakih’s background came to the surface including her alleged pole dancing past. This sort of thing is common in these instances, but did you know that our new Miss USA is also a Muslim terrorist?

That’s right some conservative nut jobs pundits have uncovered the startling fact that Fakih is in actuality “Miss Hezbollah” and is in league with the pageant’s producer Donald Trump and Muslims (since most, if not, all of them are terrorists or aiding terrorists) to…well, let conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel explain it all for you:

No, it’s not “just another beauty pageant.” Donald Trump, Muslims (who mostly support Islamic terrorist groups, like Hezbollah, which features many of Fakih’s close relatives as top officials), and even Barack Obama will exploit this as propaganda for Islam. Mark my word. Hezbollah is laughing at us, tonight. One of its auxiliary members won the Miss USA title without having to do a thing to denounce them and their bloody murder of hundreds of Americans, including the trampling/torture murder of Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem aboard TWA flight 847, the 25th anniversary of which is next month.  Read more...

Reflections on Being Professora Talibonita, or the Wonders of being an Afghan Woman in NYC

  • March 29, 2010 12:04 am

ZOHRA

Zohra aka Professora Talibonita is currently living in ABD-istan, a small island off the coast of PhD-land, the realm of steady salary and glamorous curriculum meetings. She is Afghan by birth, Brooklyn through sheer hard labor. She maintains her own Central Asia blog at www.thetincocoon.blogspot.com.

Being short and female has its consequences. I know to make up with vocal power what I am lacking in vertical inches (many inches). Being a funny-faced quasi-Asian yellow-brown girl at the head of the class has yet another set of consequences. Being blessed with this face that makes Darwin wonder (an actual quote from a nice Anglo-American lady who audited my lectures) means that my authority is questioned (well, I’d like to think its also because I look so wonderfully young) but along with that, what’s questioned is the roots of my existence. Predictably, it’s always during the first month of the semester that I get this kind of Q&A from the students:

Student: “Professor, are you Filipino?”
Me: No
Student: Chinese?
Me: No
Student: Oh Hawaiian?
Me: No
Other Students: Mexican? Indian? Professor! We are running out of countries!
Me: Kids, take a deep breath… I’m from Afghanistan.
[Silence. Sometimes an "Oh Snap!" slips out.]
Student: Oh then you must be Moozlim! (Other variations: Islamic, Mazlem, Muslamian, Muslin)
Me: Yes, Muslim  Read more...

I Dated A Korean American Nazi

  • September 15, 2009 12:28 am

Naked_Nazi-viBack in July, when I mentioned to a close friend that I was going to blog for this site and wasn’t sure what topics to tackle, she suggested I write about my long history of pathetic dating experiences. “That should provide you with many years worth of material,” she added.

I think she was kidding. But sadly I have to admit to some colorful (I personally wouldn’t use the word “pathetic”) dating stories and I’ll share one of them here. Let’s call the woman who was the object of my affection “Jane.” She was an attractive Korean American woman who initially seemed like a normal person. Little did I know she was really a…Nazi.  Read more...