November 6, 2018

There's still a few hours left to VOTE. We hope you voted!

Unveiled at town hall honoring 50th anniversary of Chinese for Affirmative Action 

San Francisco Bay Area newscasters, editors, reporters, producers, podcasters, filmmakers and pioneer internet content creators came together to mark the emergence of Asian American journalists in mainstream news media where there none before 50 years ago. 

September 16, 2018

Hollywood

At a recent screening of the box office hit Crazy Rich Asians, sponsored by the Los Angeles Chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, I sat next to actor Tim Lounibos. It was truly a landmark film - actors who look like us! After 25 years of a drought of Hollywood films featuring Asian Americans - could this be a moment of change? If $100+million dollar box office clout proves that Asian faces can sell movie tickets, let's hope this continues. 

We asked Tim for his commentary on this moment in time. - Suzanne Joe Kai 

It’s an amazing time

The past several weeks have been absolutely amazing for the Asian American entertainment industry. Crazy Rich Asians blew past $100 million at the box office in less than three weeks, becoming the most successful rom-com in almost a decade on its way to surely cracking the top ten all-time list for that genre.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a huge success on Netflix to the point where it has actually raised the popularity of the Japanese yogurt drink Yakult and the stock value of the company who produces it.

Searching had the second highest per-screen box office average in its opening week, trailing only CRA, and more than doubled its distributor’s box office expectations.

Hollywood

September 15, 2017

by Suzanne Kai

The controversial practice of whitewashing movies has been going on for nearly a century in Hollywood.

In the 1930's even the starring role of the Charlie Chan movies, scripted to be a Chinese man, was given to white actors pretending to play Chinese men. 

Fast forward to 2017 - Ed Skrein, an English actor and rapper, wins the "Hellboy" movie role of Major Ben Saimio, a character of Japanese heritage in the original comic books.

Social media erupted negatively to his casting.

Unlike actors who won and defended their roles which were originally written as Asian characters, such as Scarlett Johansspn (Ghost in the Shell), Tilda Swinton (Doctor Strange), Matt Damon (The Great Wall), and Emma Stone (Aloha) Ed Skrein gave his role back.

Ed received favorable social media reaction, and Daniel York, writer for Time Magazine wrote this commentary Skrein is setting an example other actors should follow. If only more people in the industry had his integrity, courage and common humanity.

June 25, 2018

Los Angeles

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended invitations to 928 people, a record high number of invitations, more than last year's record of 774 new members.

The Academy's president in 2016 Cheryl Boone Isaacs made it clear that she would push for a more diverse membership after the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and bringing three Asian children on stage posing as accountants without any speaking roles to be used as the butt of an insulting, stereotypical joke by host Chris Rock.

In 2016, Ed Diokno, AsAm contributing writer put the initial efforts into context: his full article is on this link and below)

“The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences invited 683 artists to become members of the organization which sponsors the Oscars. Forty-one percent of the invitees, or 272, are people of color. Seventy of those are Asian or Asian American.The move to diversify the Academy’s membership was not unexpected after the firestorm that overlooked actors of color for any acting nominations for two straight years.”

…“But really – the needle towards inclusiveness and diversity has barely moved. Prior to the invitations being sent out, only 8 percent of the Academy membership were minorities. Even if all the minority invitees accepted, there would only be 11 percent minority membership. Hardly enough to make a significant change in the Academy’s voting patterns.