You are currently browsing all entries tagged with 'Asian American'

R.I.P. Bobby Khamvongsa

  • May 23, 2012 12:02 am

Last night, all over my Facebook, I started hearing about the murder of Bobby Khamvongsa, a 27-year-old Asian man who was stabbed to death on the streets of West Hollywood last weekend. It turned out that Bobby and I had 14 mutual friends on Facebook and he had moved to Los Angeles from Hawaii to pursue a career in make-up. As I was going through the blogs, I saw that LA Weekly wrote that “the victim was dressed in women’s clothes.” The reporting was certainly titillating. The immediate question came into my mind was—had he been gay bashed?

I was surprised that the most popular Asian American blogs have not picked up on this story considering some would report on the most random Asian American drowning in the ocean. Perhaps they didn’t know how to deal with an Asian American man who died in drag. I do feel there’s homophobia in the Asian American community which isn’t quite sure how to or doesn’t want to deal with sexuality within their own community while desperately trying to uphold being “normal” in America.

The story got even more intriguing as the murder suspect, Richard Herrera, 29, went to the same high school, Kaimuki High in Hawaii, as Bobby. It was reported that the police believed that Bobby was involved in a dispute with Richard, but their relationship was still left for our speculation.  Read more...

‘Sunset Stories’ Stories: Interviewing the Sung Kang

  • May 10, 2012 9:37 am

I can’t believe I’ve known Sung Kang for over a decade. And neither can I believe that we have worked together multiple times and have not inflicted grievous bodily harm unto each other. I jest, I mean I think we’re both pretty laid back and calm and we must have a lot of common ground after all these years.

I met Sung while working on Better Luck Tomorrow, I remember that after his audition, there was no question in any of our minds, he was Han – little did he know that he would be HAN for over a decade. What I sparked onto with Sung was how his personality is really different from the brooding, silent types that he portrays on screen. In person, he’s really lighthearted, goofy and love to laugh. Our conversations usually centered around how we both loved and hated what we did (acting and filmmaking) and just wanted to somehow capture those moments of what we love the most and make a career out of it – all on our own terms (kind of a pipe dream, I know). Our paths continued to cross over the years and we always discussed working on a project together, but things never really got off the ground. I (co-)wrote Sunset Stories with Sung Kang in mind. I remember him telling me that he wanted to do something different. The character of JP in Sunset Stories is an East LA musician who is on the verge of big life changes. Should he cash in his dreams and start a family and be resigned to be a wedding singer? I knew that both Sung and I had talked about trading in the dream for reality, so I knew even if this character was far from him, he could identify with that central question.  Read more...

Around the Horn: Coming Out to the Parents Edition

  • April 23, 2012 7:08 pm

When I meet with students and aspiring artists, particularly if they’re Asian/Pacific American, I usually get asked, “How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to be a writer?”

Well, I first decided to try my hand at playwriting back in college. And the thing about Asian parents is, generally, so long as you’re getting good grades, they don’t really care what you do in your spare time (one of my favorite movies, Offender Justin’s BETTER LUCK TOMORROW, suggests you can even kill people). So I told my parents that my English major could be used as a pre-law, kept up my grades, and wrote plays in my spare time.

As senior year approached, however, I had to come out to my folks and let them know I was planing for a different kind of future post-college. Fortunately, I wasn’t raised in a “Tiger Mom” family; my mother is a pianist, and my grandmother used to say stuff like, “Why’s everyone so worried about getting ‘A’’s? What’s wrong with a ‘B?’” Still, my Father was a businessman, and it’d be quite a stretch for two immigrant Chinese parents to accept their son going for a career in the theatre.

I’d written my first play, called FOB, to be staged in my college dorm. My Father took a look at the script; he’d never read a play before, saw some swear words, and said, “I send you to that fancy school, and you write this junk?”

Then he told my Mom, “We’re going to go see this play of Dave’s. If it’s good, we’ll encourage him, and if it’s bad, we’ll tell him to stop.”  Read more...

‘Sunset Stories’ Stories: Writing What You Know

  • April 22, 2012 2:28 pm

So it’s been a few weeks since my last Sunset Stories entry – and I realized I needed to take a much needed break from the film even though it’s “completed” the rush to prepare for the next stage – festivals and hopefully some distribution. It’s been emotionally and physically draining. All I want to do is veg out in front of the television and/or play Mass Effect 3 all day, but really all that amounts to is more guilt and more work.

For this entry I wanted to address a question we got at every Q&A we’ve had so far. Where did the story come from? I know a lot of friends have actually asked the question in many forms. They’re confused about what the film is about – really about. Is it a comedy? Dark? Romantic? The synopsis can only give you so much, so I’m going to try to answer that question as best as I can. It’s an equally easy and hard question to answer. We don’t have a trailer for the film partly because we couldn’t afford to make one (that’s true folks, not kidding) and partly because we couldn’t seem to distill the story and tone of the film into two minutes and some change. We didn’t want to mislead or confuse people and potential distributors and wanted them to discover the film in the theater. Wrong or right, I get a lot of question for clarity so here goes…  Read more...

RIP Sepia Mutiny: The Shrinking Blog Sandbox

  • April 3, 2012 12:01 am

I’d always know when Sepia Mutiny posted a link to a blog on YOMYOMF because we’d see a significant spike in our traffic. And they were kind enough to link to us on a number of occasions. So for that reason and many others, I was sad to see this announcement last week:

After much deliberation we are going to send Sepia Mutiny on to retirement and cease all new posts after April 1st, 2012, almost 8 years since we first started (August of 2004).

It may have sounded like an April Fool’s joke, but as readers learned yesterday, the news was all too real. The internet’s preeminent South Asian American blog is no more (though the twitter feed and blog archive will be up for awhile).

Sepia Mutiny was popular and widely read so this announcement caught many off-guard. So what were the reasons for its demise? Here’s what they had to say:  Read more...

‘Sunset Stories’ Stories: When Micro-Budgets Attack!

  • March 19, 2012 1:38 am

After our initial screening/world premiere of SUNSET STORIES at SXSW, the nerves had gone away and I was able to enjoy the following screenings and Q&A’s. I was glad to see that the audiences were understanding and enjoying the film at both the narrative level and the larger concepts we were playing with – especially in terms of the diversity in casting. People were not really used to these images and representations and found the experience unique.

This past week, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival also took place. There were many great films there but two in particular, I AM A GHOST by H.P. Mendoza and YES, WE’RE OPEN by Richard Wong, are great examples of amazing micro-budget filmmaking. Both are true Asian American films, but take it a step further with their use of genre and content. I AM A GHOST is a horror film while YES, WE’RE OPEN is a daring romantic comedy with two AA leads! As I’ve blogged before, these are the ways micro-budget must be used to help elevate Asian American films to the foreground. And again, this is the case of AA filmmakers taking matters into their own hands and telling their own stories without compromise.

 Read more...

My Asian American Soundtrack

  • March 7, 2012 12:01 am

“Some parts of America are still very racist,” said Daniel Park, the filmmaker and social media chief for Far East Movement over a Soon Dubu meal in Koreatown. “We got posts about how some people said they really liked Far East’s music but as soon as they found out that they were Asian they weren’t interested. When you listen to Far East Movement’s music, you really can’t tell they’re Asian. But then it became a different matter when some people found out they were Asian…”

Daniel’s comment stuck in my mind right before I started making White Frog (premiering this week at the SF International Asian American Film Fest). And that comment made me even more psyched and excited to continue my unofficial Asian American soundtrack project that I started on The People I’ve Slept With. With White Frog, I was proudly and fully able to put the entire soundtrack of diverse genres and sounds from Christian rock to hip hop with entirely Asian American artists.  Read more...

5 Asian Americans (Not Named Jeremy Lin) Who Came Out of Nowhere and Made an Impact

  • March 4, 2012 7:04 pm

Just a little over a month ago, if you said that an Asian American baller would emerge as the NBA’s newest sensation, no one would’ve believed you. Yet, that’s exactly what happened with Jeremy Lin. But he’s not the only Asian American who seemingly came out of nowhere to defy expectations and make an impact on society. They may not have triggered anything approaching the levels of LINsanity we’re experiencing now, but in their own ways, the following Asian Americans made unexpected contributions that were just as important.

1) DR. SAMMY LEE


If you think there are obstacles for Asian Americans in sports in 2012, imagine what it must have been like 64 years ago when Dr. Sammy Lee became the first Asian American to win a gold medal for the United States and the first man to win back-to-back gold in Olympic platform diving (in 1948 and 1952). Born in 1920 to Korean immigrant parents in Fresno, Lee learned to dive by jumping into a pit dug in his coach’s backyard because Asians were banned from using the local public pool (except on “international” Wednesdays). From these humble beginnings, Lee made Olympic history and went on to coach future Olympic divers like Greg Louganis. And having spent some time with Dr. Lee, I can personally attest that at 91 years of age, he still has the energy, drive, charisma and a way with the ladies that helped make him a star over six decades ago.  Read more...

Pete Hoekstra’s Yellowgirl: The Apology Redo

  • February 16, 2012 11:17 am

So Lisa Chan, the young actress who appeared as “yellowgirl” in Michigan Senatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra’s racist Super Bowl ad has apologized; posting this note on her Facebook page:

“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities. As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions.”

Lisa Chan
–
CEO/ President, The Strive
Vice President, Sparxo Inc.  Read more...

‘Saturday Night Live’ and the Curious Absence of Jeremy Lin

  • February 13, 2012 12:01 am


Just over a week ago, the New York Knicks finally allowed Chinese American Jeremy Lin a shot on the court and to say he took the opportunity and ran with it would be an understatement. Not only did Lin turn the fortunes of the Knicks around, but made one of the most impressive starts in NBA history (the 89 points he scored in his first three starts is the most of any player since the 1976-77 season so chew on that, Michael Jordan).

While Asian Americans are justly proud of Lin’s accomplishments, all of America is in the grips of LINsanity—Asian, white, black, purple, everyone. But you wouldn’t have known this if you were watching this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live. There was nary a mention of Lin during all of the hour-and-a-half—not in any of the sketches, not a walk-on cameo, not even a measly joke during Weekend Update.

Well, you may be thinking—so what? Who says SNL is obligated to do anything about Lin anyway?  Read more...

Killer Chink

  • January 11, 2012 8:33 pm

Serial Killer Charles Ng

After I first met Koji Steven Sakai at a CAPE event in 2007, we started developing a couple of projects together along with my longtime collaborator and film school buddy Stanley Yung. And the very first one we started developing was a drama about a self-hating Asian American man. That feeling or complex that I wanted to confront and explore—self-hatred—is really in all of us, particularly in a North American society primarily driven by identity politics. Especially for a visible ethnic minority, how many of us are confronted with the feeling of discomfort, competitiveness or even hate when we see someone else of the same skin color in an all white environment?

I cannot remember more clearly what my mom said to me when she came home one day after dropping my little sister off to school in Montreal.

“I saw this Chinese lady at school and I asked her if she was Chinese,” said my mom. “And she said, ‘I’m CANADIAN!’”  Read more...

Adventures as an Asian American Short Filmmaker

  • November 16, 2011 12:05 am

From “Asian American Jesus,” one of the shorts that I screened with

One of the best things about going to a film festival as a short filmmaker is that you don’t have the same pressure and stress as a feature filmmaker who is constantly worried about promotion, publicity and packing your house. I attended the Vancouver Asian Film Festival a couple weeks back and really had a great time hanging out, meeting filmmakers and going to screenings because I was only showing a short film. Being relaxed and chill, I actually made a couple of discoveries at the festival that started off as a festival showing short films by North American Asian filmmakers.

 Read more...