jessicalum.com/blog

I wanted to take a moment to shift some attention to three amazing publications that I’ve been helping out with, or have helped me out a great deal over the last year.

Many of the organizations that were started to reach out, broadcast, and appreciate the amazing work of Asians and Asian Americans (or Asian Canadians, Asian Brazilians, etc.) are struggling under the financial burdens of the economic environment, especially in the journalism and print media industry.

Organizations like Giant Robot, Nichi Bei Weekly, and Hyphen Magazine are some of the few unique publications that cover and serve Asian Americans, but they are constantly in need of support.

3 Ways to Save Our Magazines, Our News, Our Community:

1. Subscribe

By subscribing to these publications, you get access to exclusive, awesome news, features, interviews, photos, art, and a way cool publication to put on your coffee table! But if that’s not enough, you give back to publications, as they earn not just cash from your subscription, but they can get better numbers and revenue from advertisement. It’s really a win-win situation when you subscribe.

• Giant Robot – 1 year subscription starts at $24, or more for cool GR swag
• Hyphen – 4 issue subscription for $18
• Nichi Bei Weekly – 3 months for $12

2. Donate

Donating gives you good karma.

But what’s more (tangible), Giant Robot and Hyphen offer free gifts with certain donation amounts! Amazing! Our favorite word: FREE!

• Join the Giant Robot Army of Donors, get amazing gifts by GR artists like David Choe and Takashi Murakami
• Join Hyphen magazine’s Overachiever’s Club, get free gifts and make your parents proud
• Donate through Paypal to the Nichi Bei Foundation or give goods

You can also get tax deductions by donating to non-profit pubs like Hyphen and Nichi Bei, which is pretty sweet for us working folk

3. Spread the word.

Whether or not you’ve got extra lunch money towards subs or donations, you can always cash in on free speech!

Spread the word about the importance and amazingness of these publications with your friends, parents, brothers, sisters, and hundreds of cousins. Got a rich engineering uncle? Accountant mom?

Also, share the scoop on the publications on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Tumblr, MySpace, your blog, wheatpaste, open mic nite.

More Info on the Publications:

Giant Robot:

Founded in Los Angeles in 1994 by Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong, Giant Robot started out as a hand-stapled photocopied zine. Within a few years, it became one of the strongest, most comprehensive sources for Asian and Asian American pop culture. It has since expanded into a Giant Robot empire, including four retails stores and one restaurant: 2 stores and GR/eats restaurant in Los Angeles, GRNY in Manhattan, and GRSF in San Francisco’s Haight neighborhood. Giant Robot just celebrated their 15th year Biennale show in Los Angeles’ Japanese American National Museum. Over the past 15 years, GR has showcased the work of hundreds of local and international Asian and Asian American artists to an audience of every color and shape. GR covers urban artists, amazing Asians doing crazy things worldwide, mainstream and underground cultural trends, cool toys, films, and as they say, “Asian Pop Culture and Beyond.”

Hyphen magazine:

Hyphen magazine was founded in 2002 when a larger Asian-focused publication, A. Magazine, ceased publishing. A group of recent college grads got together to dream up a way to fill the void left behind in Asian American news, community and culture coverage, while offering something fresh and new for readers.

Hyphen focuses on Asian American activism, issues, and everyday people doing amazing things. Check out the Hyphen site and blog for a sampling of subjects Hyphen covers.

Nichi Bei Weekly:

Formerly the Nichi Bei Times, the Nichi Bei Weekly is a part of the Nichi Bei Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to serving primarily the Northern California Japanese American community. Historically, the Nichi Bei Times was the leading Japanese American newspaper in the USA. Founded in 1946, the NBT’s goal was to connect the fractured postwar Japanese American community. Currently, the Nichi Bei Weekly strives to represent, cover, and address the concerns of the community.

Recently, the Nichi Bei Times had to close its doors and reevaluate its role in the community. As many subscribing readers are aging and younger readers are far and few, NBT was bleeding revenue. Determined to continue serving the community, Nichi Bei editor Kenji Taguma began the Nichi Bei Foundation, a non-profit organization designed to keep the paper alive in a weekly form.

Friends, family, extended friends and family,

Most of us have a bit of your own renewable resource to give this holiday season — blood. A little prick and a few minutes of your time may save a life, or help lives like mine.

Several news sources have highlighted the depleted blood supply (especially rare blood types) from November through January, since there are fewer or no blood drives going on. [Source: Chicago Tribune and the Sacramento Bee]

So if you’ve got the time or inclination, your blood donations could save lives!

Also, if you’re interested, you can donate to BloodSource under my name, which is where I get blood units from if/when I need transfusions. It’d be a nice gesture for BloodSource to know people support them in appreciation for them supporting me. And it doesn’t matter what kind of blood type you’ve got! Anything is appreciated.

Though I fortunately haven’t needed any transfusions since April (my vampire days are over, for now), but I may need them soon in the coming months to combat the side effects of radiation–my red blood cells and platelets might drop below what’s normal and safe.

Also, registering for the National Marrow Donor Program can dramatically change and tangibly save someone’s life. Leukemia, more so than even my own condition, has a good chance of going into remission from a bone marrow transplant.

Right before my last treatment, I had the awesome opportunity to meet Janet Liang, a fellow Bruin in a similar predicament as myself — at 22 she was diagnosed with leukemia, just this past August.  Here’s her site: HelpingJanet.com

People of Asian and mixed descent have an especially difficult time finding people who are a bone marrow match. From what I understand, this statistic is largely due to the fact that marrow matches tend to be in the same ethnicity, and there just aren’t that many Asian or Asian American donors. Here’s the Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches site.

Finding a match for Janet, or any patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and marrow-related diseases, will give them an even greater fighting chance — and a hero to thank!

So please, PLEASE, consider helping out! You could be helping us all kick cancer in the butt.

Sincerely, and with tons of love,

Jessica

Today, a nurse administering flu shots thought I was 16, and directed me towards the pediatrics station. MLIA: My Life is Asian.

So I decided to start a website, in the spirit of My Life is Average and FML.

http://mylifeisasian.net

Check it out.

Also, please send stories and submissions to share@mylifeisasian.net.

The news industry has been full of gloom and doom reports for the last few years (and for a few years before that, and before that), struggling to find a balance in its budget to provide quality coverage, printing costs, and keep up with a rapidly evolving Internet world, while relying on inconsistent advertisement revenue. Journalists are losing jobs, papers are closing down, but there are a few exceptions to the trend.

No Surprise here: news industry job losses are higher than the general workforce.

From Editor & Publisher:

“The news industry has been hemorrhaging jobs long before the economic crisis began last year,” Unity Executive Director Onica N. Makwakwa said. “These numbers confirm that the economic downturn has hit the news industry very, very hard.”

Read here: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004014096

Ouch.

But some better news from SF Gate on ethnic media. The Nichi Bei Times, the oldest Japanese American newspaper recently closed down, but was almost immediately reborn as the Nichi Bei Weekly, now a non-profit publication, thanks to the efforts of a concerned community loyal to the publication.

Read here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/19/BUT019LJS0.DTL

Kevin Weston, director of new media for New America Media, said long-standing African American newspapers such as the Oakland Post and San Francisco Sun-Reporter have survived numerous “waves of recessions” in part because of the passion of the staff.

“The folks that are in the field see it as a business, but to them this is also community work, this is their life’s work,” Weston said.

Another hat off to the idea of hyperlocalized news coverage. If people care enough, they read; if they read enough, they care.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee wrote today in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece about their story in North Korea:

Our motivations for covering this story were many. First and foremost, we believe that journalists have a responsibility to shine light in dark places, to give voice to those who are too often silenced and ignored. One of us, Euna, is a devout Christian whose faith infused her interest in the story. The other, Laura, has reported on the exploitation of women around the world for years. We wanted to raise awareness about the harsh reality facing these North Korean defectors who, because of their illegal status in China, live in terror of being sent back to their homeland.

I have been following the arrest, detainment, trial, sentencing, and finally, the release of the two journalists very carefully over the last few months, as well as the experience of another journalist, Roxana Saberi.

In a general sense, I feel a connection to these women, as a journalist, as an Asian American, as a person. On a personal level, I suppose I identify a bit with the women as well. Lee is a Christian, and like myself, Ling is from Sacramento and she graduated from UCLA.  I find her work inspirational, thought-provoking, and impressively revelatory. Their shared desire to give a voice, to empower, to inform–it’s the universal desire of journalists. Journalists are public servants, charged with a mission to bring the truth, the stories that matter, to people who listen, who can help. So in spite of the crappy pay, the terrible hours with nagging deadlines, a lifestyle often leading to consumption (of unhealthy amounts of alcohol), the constant threat of the death of an industry, journalists are still at it. And for Ling and Lee, in spite of their harrowing experience in North Korea, their priority is still to tell these untold stories.

Laura and Euna, thank you for sharing your stories, as painful as it was for both of you. I am deeply grateful that the two of you are back home, safe, and with your families.

I had posted this back in March on my Facebook notes.  Here’s a repost:

Probably a good month, month-and-a-half ago, a handful of people asked what my thoughts on Gran Torino are. By a handful of people, I really mean (remember) John and Jon…

Anyways, I finally got around to watching it today.

A lot of my Asian friends had commented on how much of the film was Clint Eastwood muttering racial slurs under his breath. True. (I was far more impressed by his “old man” grumblings and sighs of annoyance. “GrrMmmmmmMMMMhhhh, no more, no more!…-sniff- Oh okay, bring it in, bring it in…”) But I think the source of much upset regarding these racial slurs is really from the audience reaction. How the audience reacts to Eastwood’s character’s dialogue and sometimes monologues affected how I felt, at least, not towards the film, but towards the jerks sitting behind me.

Now…these guys behind me were big boys. Big in every way. Hefty men, rotund. They’d put their feet up, and shake the entire row of chairs in ways I’ve never felt before (I think the guy kept grinding one of his shoes against the other as he’d drop one foot from the top of the chair to the ground from time to time). Gargantuan noises. Eating. Talking. Unnecessary comments. These guys were nightmares to sit in front of. I don’t recall ever having such rude, unpleasant theater companions before.

Anyways, these guys seemed to be there more for the actual racial banter and jokes, rather than to watch an enlightening film about race, class, and age relations. [SPOILER ALERT] At the serenely violent end, the most vocal of the herd shouted out “I WASN’T EXPECTING THAT KIND OF ENDING!” Surely he was expecting something far more along the lines of Dirty Harry or The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Clint Eastwood really disappointed this guy.

But during the film, each time Eastwood’s character, Walt Kowalski, would spit out some sort of racial comment, these guys would be busting their sides with laughter. Sure, many of these moments were meant to be funny…but not really so much in the beginning…

I thought the film, however, was a fair shot at a socially conscious film. It had the feel of Boyz n the Hood plus a little western/war nostalgia that Eastwood’s presence alone brings to the screen. It’s a warm film about aging, death, and discovering the meaning of life. Certainly a socially significant film, not only because it examines cultural differences and socioeconomic struggles, but because it approaches issues that are essentially human.

When Kowalski uses the racial slurs, he does so not entirely out of hate. Or at all out of hate, even in the beginning. He echoes language that he grew up with, perhaps hyperbolically, but he uses it out of his ignorance towards his neighbors, or as a tool of intimidation before he has to resort to whipping out his pistol. Yet he subtly shifts his tone, though his language remains unchanged, to use slurs as terms of endearment, light teasing to which his neighbors take little offense. No one actually corrects Kowalski’s speech to tell him that it is deeply offensive, so his character, in character, makes no adjustments.

Granted, those hard, harsh words are hurtful to many. But taken in context, the point is a bit…null.

But the sad thing is that the subtle tone shift, the endearment and appreciation for the Hmong culture, and Kowalski’s new understanding of life itself, is likely lost on many of the…less perceptive audience members like my corpulent pals behind me.

–
Other thoughts:

For the most part, the film has a sort of Italian neorealism essence about it. Non-professional actors, representing the lower-class lifestyle (think Slumdog Millionaire as a very recognizable modern example). However, it (like Slumdog) is a bit too tidy in the end to be neorealism. I think that’s more of a trend among American movies, though, rather than a specific fault of the film. Americans, especially now, really need that picker-upper. Europeans and Asians really seem to not mind that depressing, yet real-life ending. There’s always a ray of hope though…ambiguously… but in American films, we have a hard, tangible, but plastic-y happier-than-expected ending. And darn, does it feel good.

It was nice to see some Asian American representation in there. Sure, the Hmong actors weren’t fantastic, but keep in mind, they’re not professionally trained. At least they’re really Hmong, not *ahem* Chinese substituting as usual *coughmemoirsofageishacough*. It certainly worked to address some of the social difficulties Hmong communities face, and lower income Asians as well: gangs, poverty, familial pressures, etc. I’m sure it barely brushed the surface of many other problems, but save it for another film.

I just listened to a pretty good NPR discussion on positive stereotypes.

Are Positive Stereotypes Racist, Too?

L’Heureux Lewis, assistant professor of sociology and black studies at the City College of New York, said, “…we have to recognize that [positive stereotypes] are gross generalizations. They may have a kernel of truth based on some social reality but ultimately they limit the choices and limit the opportunities and limit the things that people can do.”

In retrospect, I think this is…sort of…what the humor in Yo Teach! is trying to do with the teacher telling the Asian student that she will never be the president, and should instead aim for menial work. However, my problem is that the Asian kid is THAT “Asian kid.”

I think that the more common complaint about Asian American portrayal in the media these days is that the Asian characters are always either imported from Asia (and thus, Asian, not Asian American), or they are specifically ethnic Asian American characters. There are very few (though their numbers are growing*) simply “American” or “normal” characters that happen to be Asian American.

If you missed it earlier, check out this wonderful NPR piece:

Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes?

It features founders of Giant Robot magazine, Martin Wong and Eric Nakamura, as well as Gedde Watanabe himself, the actor behind Long Duk Dong.

And here’s Adrian Tomine’s take on it (also on the NPR page):

—

*Here’s a short(hand) list of some characters that just so happen to be Asian American. Some aren’t the greatest actors, characters, or parts, but hey, “The Donger” set our standards pretty low, and anything is better.

John Cho and Kal Penn as Harold and Kumar in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

I remember that when this first came out, “grownups” from my Chinese church were recommending that we go see this. “Finally!” they said, “A movie featuring two Asian protagonists in a non-stereotypical way!” I don’t think they realized that the main reason they aren’t stereotypical is because well…they’re in a stoner flick.

In any case, Cho is widely recognized a big groundbreaker for Asian men in the media, especially beginning with his work in Better Luck Tomorrow.

Not my favorite film, but certainly noteworthy as an Asian-Am film.

On to more recent stuff, Daniel Henney plays a pretty swell Agent Zero in the latest X-Men: Origins film.

Zero is a pretty slick character with some nice gun-handling skills, though he’s a bit of a d-bag and is pretty much William Stryker’s lackey. At least he makes it look good!

Aaron Yoo: I want him to be my best friend.

Yoo plays a really great best friend to Shia LaBeouf’s character in Disturbia.

Of course, he’s usually stuck as a supporting actor. Kind of like James Franco. He’s always stuck being the backup man: Pineapple Express, Milk, Spider-Man. Some actors never really catch a break.

As for actresses….this one’s a tough one. In my opinion, Asian American women have it the hardest getting into non-specifically-Asian roles in movies.

Well…here’s a shoddy list:

Maggie Q sort of gets the short end of the straw in Die Hard 4, and is pretty much the serious lady on the wrong side who gets owned by her prickish evil lover. And then by Bruce Willis. But who wouldn’t get owned by Bruce Willis?

At least she has a good sense of humor about it:

She was also in MI:3 and a bunch of Hong Kong films, where she got her start.

Hmmm..a bit like Henney, who also started in Korean films/dramas.

So…I guess for some of these newer stars, they’re following the ol’ Imported from Asia path, though in Asia, they’re imported from America.

Ah, Asia-America.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/76183/yo-teach-miki-moves-up

So…Yo Teach! apparently is a show that exists in the fictional world of the summer film, Funny People. I personally can’t wait to watch this; it’s a bit like Queen Latifah’s Last Holiday, where she discovers she has a terminal illness and wants to do all the things in life she’s missed out on. Only this film is a Judd Apatow movie, so it’ll probably be pretty hilarious and not horrible. And in both films, the protagonists discover that they are, in fact, not dying. Stupid cop-out ending. Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be nice?

Anyways, back to Yo Teach!

Granted, this show is a parody of a high school serial, akin to Saved by the Bell, etc.

Under that genre, I assume also that the characters are archetypal: the jock, nerd, Molly Ringwald, and so forth.

And while this astute Asian student is no Long Duk Dong, she is painfully archetypal and stereotypical of the modern Asian American: Miki is afraid of her parents’ expectations, complains that they want her to become a doctor, lawyer, rocket scientist, and so forth, and that she fears failure. She doesn’t want to be dumb, because she’s ASIAN.

Of course, Mr. Bradford is no Shylock; he brings up a racial stereotype and says, it just ain’t so! Although, in his case, he doesn’t BEGIN as a racial stereotype.

(Speaking of Shakespearean references, here’s another Yo Teach! short that I do like, a lot. William Shu-Shu-Shu-Shu-Shakespeare!!)

On one hand, this parody show-within-a-show is perfectly excusable. It’s supposed to represent a really corny TV show, heavy on the laugh track and cliché dialogue.

But on the other hand, perpetuating a racial stereotype is very different from perpetuating the nerd, jock, rebel archetypes. While social labels might be an oversimplified, juvenille method of identification, they usually remain in the halls of high school. Well, usually.

Racial stereotypes, however, generally outlast that juvinile propensity to identify with a social group. Racial stereotypes exist in every social environment, at any age.

I’m not terribly offended by this representation of an Asian American. Maybe I’m desensitized and I’m used to that caricature. Maybe I just don’t want to make a big deal over it.

But what bothers me the most is that this really isn’t that funny.

And it would probably be even less funny if say, the student was black. Latin American. Gay.

We can rag all we want on social stereotypes. The avid members of the chess club, un-academic athletes, airheaded cheerleaders, and the hippies playing guitar on the grass (and on grass) probably won’t be up in arms. If they even exist outside of teen dramas. Representing these “groups” of people is largely inoffensive because when they do appear in the media, they are written off as archetypes, as characters.

But when a stereotypical racial character shows up, they only function to deepen those stereotypes.

It just saddens me that after so many years of attempts to break down stereotypical Asian American portrayals in the media, that something shows up to reinforce them.

And come on, when will the Asian finally be the jocks? The preps? We’re tired of being the nerds. Down with calculus club and parental demands! We’re ready for some STUDENT GOVERNMENT!

Just last week, I took a walk through the muggy Los Angeles air.  It was the kind of air that hangs thickly about you, and doesn’t quite suffocate more than it makes you forget to breathe.

That’s how I realized, I forgot how it feels to be alive.

Not that I am dead (”Are we the dining dead?”), just that I’ve forgotten how to live.

There’s that mechanical cycle. Work. Sleep. Eat. Bathe. Play. Sleep. Work. Write. Read. Simon says.

That all gets to you too.  You forget so easily how to breathe.  It gets to you. Los Angeles, the city, it wears down on you.  And before you realize, you’re old. Your lungs are black. You’re tired, and on the verge of discovering nothing new except more ugly truths about how cruel and shallow people are.

The City of Angels, though, is not entirely bleak.  There’s inspiration in that ugliness. It is cliche to say, but there is always beauty in violence.  Beauty in death, art in crime.

Director Harry Kim followed L.A. local artist David Choe around for 7 years with a camera, documenting the ups and downs, the ins and outs of his artistic and personal experiences.  Why David Choe?  Why not. Choe struggles-and so openly, and candidly- with much of what we are usually too ashamed to speak of.

Choe’s art is not limited to his canvas, it is his very life.  From a search for a dinosaur in the Congo to three months in a Japanese prison, Choe creates and experiences art, pain, love, sexual addiction, loneliness, insanity, depression, redemption, and God.  The ups and downs, the falling away, the coming back, and the realization that maybe all of this is just because we don’t want to grow up.

Because when we were kids, we knew how to feel alive.

Never growing up is dangerous (Michael Jackson?), but there is that constant thrill, the irrelevance of time, the liberation, the discovery, and the lack of inhibition.  The laughter.

“Dirty Hands” isn’t about crime, or art really.  It’s not about the spray paint, the urine, and soy sauce that Choe uses on his canvases.  It’s not about having sticky kleptomaniac hands.

“Dirty Hands” is about being a kid, fully capable of feeling pain, often subject to faulty logic, prone to injury and disillusionment, believing in the incredible.  It is a film about growing old, but somehow through all the growing pains, staying young, and simply living.

Few do.

This guy does not:

http://www.thecampuspress.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=c07cea4a-0e65-4465-a9c4-17d6deb357e8

So I’m guessing “all those Asians” he talks about comprise maybe…..5-10% of the Colorado University’s 13% “students of color”? (http://www.colorado.edu/pba/qfacts/demog.html)

Karson makes a sore attempt at being clever/witty/original/cava