By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, February 25, 2010

The notion that Asians and Jews are two shoots from the same cultural rootstock is an old but evergreen meme.

You see it in fringe theories about the Lost Tribes of Israel -- there's an entire body of cryptoarchaeological canon that uses similarities between customs, language and naming convention to "prove" that the ancient vanished Jewish clans ended up in China, India or Japan. (Japan's 50,000-member Makuya sect, which has as its central dogma that the Japanese are descendants of a lost Jewish tribe, keep kosher, speak Hebrew and use the seven-armed menorah as their symbol.)

Halfpipe gold medallist Xuetong Cai of China is flanked by compatriots Zhifeng Sun (left), silver, and Xu Cheng, bronze as they stand on the podium at the FIS snowboard world cup Friday, Jan. 22, 2010 in Stoneham Que. (CP) Source: CIV

We knew during the Beijing Olympics the media took every opportunity to mock the Chinese Athletes just about anything they could find.

When it comes to talking about Chinese athletes, it seems like every article must reemphasize the words  'government-funded', 'state owned', and rather acknowledging the concept of dedication, hard work and discipline as athletic qualities in the Chinese they prefer to call it 'cultural oppression' or even 'inhuman torture'. 

The same rhetorical defamation recycles itself again and in the 2010 Vancouver Winter games the media has taken another stab at it.

Since the Asian American film burst onto the scene thirty something years ago, many of those filmmakers, such as, Christine Choy, Wayne Wang, Mira Nair, Ang Lee, Justin Lin and among others are now comfortably part of the American cinematic mainstream.

Each year, hundreds of filmmakers from around the Asian Diaspora submit their short films to Asian American film festivals. They have given us stories of immigration and assimilation, adversity and triumph, motivation and inspiration of all genres: narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, music video.

Common reoccurring themes include identity politics, alienated youth, hypersexualization, math nerds, over-achievers, stereotypes, suburban alienation, and kung-fu waiters. 
Been there? Done that?

Tell us YOUR Asian American story.

The six men on stage included a poet, a break dancer and a filmmaker. They pounded rhythms on the dhol drum, modeled fresh fashions, slathered whipped cream on bare skin and discussed their passion for community service.

This is the "Mr. Hyphen" contest, a faux pageant in the San Francisco Bay area aimed at redefining the image of Asian-American men beyond nerdy, sexless stereotypes.

Conspicuously absent from the stage were computer experts, doctors, lawyers or dry cleaners. There were, however, martial arts - with a twist.

Pahole Sookkasikon, an American-born graduate student partial to drawing, cooking, and "flirting for free drinks at the bar," knew that his hobbies would not translate well to the talent portion of the show.

Nothing says controversy like an Internet fight over racism in marketing and design. If you weren't familiar with last week's blow-by-blow, Asian author and professor Soong-Chan Rah called out racism at worst and insensitivity at best in the marketing and design of the book Deadly Viper Character Assassins by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. Rah accused Foster and Wilhite of fueling racial stereotypes and co-opting Asian culture in order to market their book. It was an especially interesting challenge because Foster and Wilhite's book is all about integrity and character. The conversation exploded with hundreds of comments and eventually led to a conference call between Rah, Foster, Wilhite and moderators.

Scholarly blogger deals with cultural fallacies, ethnic misconceptions.

When you think of an angry Asian man, the image of a ninja wielding formidable weapons comes to mind. The stereotype isn’t far from the mark when you visit “Angry Asian Man,” a blog run by University of California, Berkeley alumnus Phil Yu.

“The name of my blog is provocative and scary,” said Yu. “It’s different from most people’s idea of what an Asian person is supposed to be. Most Asians in this country are not seen as people who are willing to rock the boat. We’re seen as meek people who just let things slide, but that’s not true at all.”

At a panel in the Texas Union on Thursday, Yu and Nhi Lieu, a UT American studies professor discussed Asian-American media representation and identity in America, as well as the influence of Yu’s blog on the Asian-American community.

By Craig Takeuchi

It's been a while since there's been an Asian North American box-office hit. The Joy Luck Club, The Wedding Banquet, and Snow Falling on Cedars were all from the '90s. Indie successes like Better Luck Tomorrow and Eve and the Fire Horse (by Vancouver's Julia Kwan) have been few and far between over the past decade. Other filmmakers of Asian descent (Jessica Yu, In the Realms of the Unreal; Cary Fukunaga, Sin Nombre), have established themselves by tackling subjects unrelated to their heritage.

The most consistent local source for such works remains the Vancouver Asian Film Festival, which runs from November 5 to 8 at the Cinemark Tinseltown (88 West Pender Street). Unlike other local events that showcase films from Asia, VAFF emphasizes stories by and about Asian Canadians and Americans.

BOSTON - It's one of the great closing lines in movie history, "Come on, Jake. It's . . . Chinatown." Those words, spoken to Jack Nicholson in, of course, "Chinatown," suggest all too accurately the sheer otherness of the Chinese experience as seen by Hollywood.

That otherness has run the gamut. Patronizing, reductive depictions of China ("The Good Earth," say) have gone hand in hand with Chinese-American stereotypes (cooks and laundry operators mostly, with the occasional opium smoker, for variety's sake, and, more recently, kung fu masters). The most famous Chinese and Chinese-American characters have been shameless caricatures - Fu Manchu, for example, and Charlie Chan.

What can be more depressing than a story like this to remind us of our current society and the state of human morality. It is important that we should continue to advocate against human trafficking and foriegners who go overseas to find Asian wives or sex touring for Asian women (or in this case, Children too).

Typically, these are the types that have the imperialist mindset, they prey on those who are inpoverished and live in difficult conditions. The circumstances that exposes a vulnerability can be said without reference, human trafficking or sexual exploitation of Asian women.

We have similar issues that exist in first world countries only that these  problems exist on a another level. In the social context, racism comes  intertwined with stereotypes, race sexual fetish, Asian fetishism, Pedophilia, Asiaphiles, Sexism, Rapists, murders etc all that commonly share the same basis on the grounds of racism.

"Strangers" of the Academy Asian Women Scholars in Higher Education, Edited by Guofang Li, Gulbahar H. Beckett, Foreword by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim

Abstract - No less than other minorities, Asian women scholars are confronted with racial discrimination and stereotyping as well as disrespect for their research, teaching, and leadership, and are underrepresented in academia.

In the face of such barriers, many Asian female scholars have developed strategies to survive and thrive. This book is among the first to examine their lived experience in Western academic discourses. It addresses the socio-cultural, political, academic, and personal issues that Asian female scholars encounter in higher education.