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Posting from the "Colorblind" Blog:

Jeff was publisher of A. Magazine, one of the most popular and influential Asian American magazines during its run from 1989-2002. Since then, Jeff has published several books including co-editing Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology and is widely recognized and respected as an expert on Asian and Asian American pop culture. I have admired Jeff’s work for a long time but only finally got the chance to meet him at Syracuse.

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.)

As explained in section IV of Remember, the Asian-American Man and Woman are a couple under siege from mainstream America.

Those that choose to remain with each other are stamped as 'Asian and foreign', while on an unspoken but quite apparent level - only Asian women are afforded the opportunity to mingle and integrate into white social circles and white families.

The psychological pressure on the Asian woman to conform becomes immensely powerful, given the life-long indoctrination she is given by a mainstream American media that is completely devoid of images of Asian faces and depictions of viable Asian-American couples/families. This will gradually and inevitably destroy the kindred bond the Asian female shares with the Asian male from a young age, and the damage is thorough and complete.

In other words, the internalized racism that Asian-American children learn from the American Media destroys their ethnic self-esteem - and this in turn erodes the ability of the Asian-American boy and girl to love each other as adults.

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.

In this new year of 2010 I hope everyone can continue to be optimistic as this ever struggling economy still has a heart beat, although we have been told our economies have recovered our wages are still just as terrible ( I think not ). There is still no excuse for not making the best of what we have and we should continue to strive for new heights.

In the past, this website had primarily worked on with publishing Asian related content, intelligent opinions, informative articles and any positive Asian media.

This year there will be a slight adjustment to the style of posting, usually we would publish news without actual commentary but as of today we will be adding in our 2 cents worth to everything post. Ideally would like to throw topics in the air and have people take it upon themselves to think about issues. 

We'll try to remain objective about each issue.

The first fear mongering article I've come across since the beginning of this new year sums up all the forecasts of "experts" panic stricken and fear mongering media who can only see this world burning in hell.

Trevor Middleton, 23, of Sutton, was convicted Dec. 15 in a Newmarket court of four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

Middleton had been charged with trying to run Liu's Honda off the road, not for the dunking of Liu and Hogan.

The incident on the Mossington Park Bridge is an extreme example of attacks and harassment that have been inflicted scores of times in the past few years on Asian fishermen in the Greater Toronto Area. It has become so common that the attacks have nicknames by some Georgina Township locals: "nip-tipping" and "nipper-tipping."

What's unique about the attack on Liu and Hogan – apart from the near-fatal and crippling injury to Berwick – is the huge attention it has garnered from Asian community leaders, activists and media members.

Some thing's are better as never said and when words are spoken people should be accountable for what they say. Given that as responsibility, it could also be seen at another angle that there is also the responsibility for not saying what needs to be said.

Much could be said about the media little racist scheme during the U.S president's visit to China to improve economic ties and collaboration between the U.S and China.

Obama was on business trying to look for ways to fix up his bankrupt economy that was left to him in the worst state.

Firstly the white media tried painting China as anti-black racists and claims China disliked "chocolate coloured skin". Though this was not something that came from the Chinese mouths it was indeed straight out the mouth of white media who thought that they could make racists statements without taking responsibility by using China as a scapegoat.

To the people who thought racism was a thing of the past and no longer exists in the 21st century.... you are dead wrong. Some of us probably live in the nicer places in the country with some good multicultural friends but the people in the next town/city may not be so friendly.

To all my other dearest Asian Brothers, Sisters, Families, Civil Rights Advocacy groups, Asian Activists in western countries. We know racism is very much alive and it comes in all shapes and forms in mainstream society.

While we continue to experience it's reoccurring unpleasantness and Deja Vu's, I am all convinced we are still living as second class citizens and are still sunjected to different forms of  racial oppression.

Ancient Taoist once believed the driving universal life principles are found in Yin and Yang, nature will seek neutrality and find balance between interchangeable opposing forces. Though my analogy might sound a little ancient in the philosophical works but you would eventually understand my point in our society at present.

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.

When the Hyphen editorial team discovered that Amy Tan was the recipient of the third annual Litquake Barbary Coast Award for contribution to the Bay Area literary community, there was a flurry of confused emails: What exactly was this award and why did Amy Tan deserve to win it? I decided to go and investigate how the San Francisco literary community celebrates one of Asian America's most (in)famous writers.

As I sat in the half-full Herbst Theater this past Wednesday, in a crowd that seemed to be made up of mostly middle-aged white people, I considered what exactly I thought of Amy Tan's winning this award. Obviously, as we have covered at Hyphen extensively, though Tan indeed put "the Bay Area on the literary map" -- the point of the award as explained by Litquake's founders Jack Boulware and Jane Ganhal -- The Joy Luck Club and Tan's subsequent bibliography has irked many an Asian American.