I had first heard of ‘birth tourism’ from a former co-worker/friend of mine more than a decade ago. When I heard that Chinese women were coming Southern California to give birt… Read More

As a smartwatch user who uses one to track health and fitness statistics, I have wondered how accurate it is, especially since my skin tone is on the darker side (see picture).  We have… Read More

I was supposed to review Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story (trailer here) during or around CAAMFest 2023, but I let the screener link expire and the screening during CAAMFest was on… Read More

Another blog post I am woefully late on (but did post the video on YouTube shortly afterwards). I had attended the 125th anniversary back on March 25th commemorating and celebrating the lan… Read More

Speakers in the video above – in order of appearance: (click on “Watch on YouTube” for entire timestamped video segments in the video description) Sara Lashanlo, Northern… Read More

Monument to the Lost Battalion During this time when Asian Americans continue to be questioned for their loyalty and are still considered perpetual foreigners, it is worthwhile on US Memoria… Read More

There comes a time in your life when a metaphorical slap in the face tells you that you are no longer the young hip person you may have thought that you once were.  In Fawzia Mirza&lsq&helli…Read More

At CAAMFest, some friends of mine were interested in seeing Starring Jerry as Himself: “Wait wait. How did we go from funny 80s immigrant family home videos to horror film infraso… Read More

Perhaps one of the most anticipated young adult Asian American media releases this year is Disney+’s upcoming streaming series American Born Chinese,   The series, set to release… Read More

For the first time since the pandemic, CAAMFest (Center for Asian American Media Festival) 2023 went full-tilt for the in-person attendee in San Francisco with the opening night film Joy R… Read More

“They were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them. They’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time… Read More

Recently, the Committee of 100 and Columbia University published a report on “The State of Chinese Americans”: “New York, NY (April 27, 2023) – Columbia Uni… Read More

After I heard about the upcoming Disney+ series American Born Chinese, I purchased and read the graphic novel by Gene Yuen. Now that the trailer has been released, I did notice some noticea… Read More

After what has seem liked an agonizingly long time to say anything, the creative team behind Netflix’s BEEF, including creator Lee Sung Jin and lead actors and executive producers Stev… Read More

The Center for Asian American Media recently announced that their event CAAMFest 2023 would open with with the movie Joy Ride. CAAMFest, formerly the San Francisco Asian American Film Festi… Read More

Almost every week, I get a new LinkedIn connect request from an attractive and highly accomplished Chinese woman. When I finally got around to looking in detail at the profile of one of thes… Read More

Harvard’s Asian American admissions, subject of a lawsuit that accuses of Harvard of suppressing Asian American admissions, rose to 29.1% for the incoming class for 2023.  This is… Read More

After a clean sweep at the Oscars for the major acting categories, A24 will release a new series on Netflix called BEEF, starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, on April 6.  The series is a… Read More

I’ve never been to South by Southwest (“SXSW”) in Austin, Texas, where part of the overall set of conferences and art festivals is a film festival. Literally one year afte… Read More

I’ve been following Randall Park ever since I first noticed him in a Wells Fargo television ad back in July of 2008. So I was really happy to see a recent segment on PBS NewsHour abo… Read More

After seeing Everything Everywhere all at Once (EEAAO) win a slew of Academy Awards, are you wondering where you can see the cast together again? Disney+ recently announced that Americ… Read More

Although we have talked about Asian American voter apathy for years now, recent elections in places like Georgia are said to have swung based on increased Asian American voter turnout. … Read More

It’s impossible to miss the increase in Asian and Asian American representation. This year, Everything Everywhere all at Once and its actors won a number of Golden Globe awards and rec… Read More

Esco Jouléy and Mitchell Winter in the 2023 Production of WOLF PLAY at MCC Theater – Photo by Julieta Cervantes Wolf Play by Hansol Jung is an enthralling play about an off-the-r… Read More

(photo credit: Ray Mueller) After the initial shock about hearing about the Half Moon Bay shootings, my next reaction to hearing that Chunli Zhao actions were related to his work on a farm w… Read More

Every year, Apple releases a short film for Chinese New Year that is shot on an iPhone, and every year I look forward to the story that is created. This short for this 2023 is called Throug… Read More

While watching the San Francisco 49ers defeat the Seattle Seahawks, I saw this Northwestern Mutual commercial (‘Distant Relatives’): “Someday is today. That’s the re… Read More

Michelle Yeoh won a best actress Golden Globe in a musical or comedy film, and Ke Huy Quan won best supporting actor Golden Globe in a motion picture for their work in Everything Everywhere… Read More

I wrote before about how every vote can make a difference, and when I wrote the story, Murali Srinivasan was beating Justin Wang for Sunnyvale City Council by just one vote.  A recount… Read More

(image credit: San Francisco Chronicle) Graphical visualizations are often the best way to understand data. The San Francisco Chronicle recently published this dynamic set of visualizations… Read More

As it is now the holiday season, it is important for people to consider what and how much they are eating.  While Asian American obesity rates are lower than the American average, a rec… Read More

Our writer John has written about Asian American voter apathy over the years and sometimes brings it up when we have lunch, but for me, three recent events really bring out the importance of… Read More

Michelle Yeoh has been selected to be Time Magazine’s 2022 Icon of the Year. She is riding a streak of hit movies in the United States, from Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi and th… Read More

The documentary Rising Against Asia Hate:  One Day in March came out about a month ago, but it some of its key points are particularly relevant today, particularly with the Senate… Read More

In an amazing journey from being a homeless single mother living in a car, Sheng Thao was elected mayor of Oakland. The journey is even more amazing considering that in the initial count of… Read More

Generating a result that should surprise no one, a study concludes that while all youths (teens 13-17) experienced increased cyberbullying compared to before the pandemic, Asian American you… Read More

As the “Americanness” of Asian Americans is often questioned these days despite the long history of Asian Americans in the United States, Veteran’s Day is a good time to po… Read More

I have been going to San Jose Japantown for most of my adult life, but the only thing Filipino there that I noticed was a small Filipino community center building.  Only after taking a… Read More

I first heard of Lanhee Chen when he had first worked for then Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as a policy advisor, and I met him the first time when he was a Hoover Fellow at… Read More

Rice is Life: Recipes and Stories Celebrating the World’s Most Essential Grain is a new cookbook out from Caryl Levine and Ken Lee, founders of Lotus Foods. It’s hard to disagree… Read More

Although I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (since 1999), I’ve never lived in Oakland and rarely make it there, but I do know that Oakland City Council member Sheng Thao is running… Read More

Google published 10 Ways to Celebrate Filipino American History, which is appropriate as October is Filipino American History Month. The article talks about learning about and honoring nota… Read More

My Diwali Light by Raakhee Mirchandani, art by Supriya Kelkar is a lovely picture book about celebrating Diwali with family and friends. With Diwali just around the corner (it’s on Mon… Read More

Not sure why Ronny Chieng of The Daily Show decided to do a piece on K-pop recently: The signature elements of K-Pop? Next level dance choreography and being Asian. Ronny Chieng digs into h… Read More

I was watching 60 Minutes recently and saw this commercial by Creative Planning: “Is your advisor giving you incomplete advice? Besides investing, there’s also taxes, i… Read More

Sasha Diamond and Shannon Tyo in peerless at Primary Stages at 59E59. Photo by James Leynse Jiehae Park’s dark comedy peerless about the high pressure stakes of elite college admission… Read More

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area in the last 50 years, you probably have seen local television reporter David Louie. After working at ABC7 News for over 50 years, he will be retir… Read More

Back in July, I had blogged about Michelle Kwan being inducted into the U.S.Olympic Hall of Fame, as well as her being confirmed as Ambassador to Belize. Well, I was wrong – Mic… Read More

Back in June, I had blogged about a community event about an upcoming documentary, ’38 At the Garden’ about Jeremy Lin’s performance against Kobe Bryant’s LA Lakers… Read More

Chosen is a documentary by Joseph Hoo Juhn about five Korean Americans, two Republicans and three Democrats, who ran for the US Congress in 2020.  We have written about a number of the… Read More

Back in January of this year, I had attended the one year anniversary of the deadly assault against 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee while on a walk in San Francisco. Recently, there was a c… Read More

A few weekends ago on Saturday, August 27th afternoon, I attended in San Bruno, California (just south of San Fransisco), the Tanforan Memorial Ribbon Cutting and Statue Unveiling: &l&hellip…Read More

Image courtesy of Cornell University When I saw Jeff’s blog post on Gonzaga Basketball Players Kayleigh and Kaylynne Truong, I knew had to write about Cornell University’s Jam… Read More

Both the Republican and Democrat Parties and their partisans have been making moves to encourage Asian American to vote their way in the coming mid-term elections.  The Republican Party… Read More

Earlier in September, the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company published this Executive Briefing: ‘Asian American workers: Diverse outcomes and hidden challenges’:… Read More

(photo credit: USDA) It might be seem like a stretch to call the Western States Drought a medical hazard particular to Asian Americans, but one aspect of the drought will affects certain Asi… Read More

Out today, Seoulmates by Susan Lee is a fun friends-to-lovers YA romance that tackles Korean American identity as all things Korean become popular in the U.S. It’s the summer before he… Read More

New AAPI Registrants: 2020 vs 2022 (photo credit: Tom Bonier) I forget when I first started following Tom Bonier of TargetSmart (“a Democratic political data and data services firm&rd&hell…Read More

I remember the original ‘Quantum Leap’ TV series, which aired on NBC for 5 seasons from 1989 to 1993. I wasn’t a big watcher of TV back then, mostly because I was in coll… Read More

(Full disclosure: I’ve donated to Jay’s campaign and endorse his run for Congress.) The last time I had interviewed Taiwanese American Jay Chen was back in 2012 when I first met… Read More

Even before the pandemic, Oakland Chinatown was struggling.  But since start of the Pandemic and the resulting increase in anti-Asian violence, 10% of Oakland Chinatown small business h… Read More

Mika Suzuki is standing in a Target of all places when she gets a phone call that will change her life in Emiko Jean’s heartwarming new novel, Mika in Real Life. Sixteen years earlier… Read More

Photo credit: Gonzaga University Before reading this article about Gonzaga Basketball Players Kayleigh and Kaylynne Truong, I had no idea about any Asian American women college basketball pl… Read More

A recent study from from Harvard Business School concludes that the pandemic generated a 12% reduction in bookings for AirBnb hosts with distinctly Asian names compared to those with distinc… Read More

Representatives Judy Chu and Grace Meng – courtesy of 8Asians A few weeks ago, I had learned of a fundraiser in San Francisco for the ASPIRE PAC , which I had not heard of before:… Read More

Jo Koy’s upcoming movie “Easter Sunday” has earned him the key to Daly City in a ceremony on July 22, 2022. The Bay Area city known for its large Filipino American populat… Read More

Since I cover politics as my particular niche for 8Asians, I’m always interested when the latest Asian American Voter Survey comes out. Thus I was eager to see this years would say… Read More

Feeling great about the announcement – let’s go!! pic.twitter.com/UT8nfbCH2U — Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) July 28, 2022 On Wednesday, July 27th, Forward Party founder And… Read More

This public service announcement, created by director Brian G. Cheung and production company Only Today puts expresses a simple message: Asian Americans are Americans. This is in response t… Read More

Reuters, NPR, and other news outlets report that  African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians receive less supplemental oxygen when hospitalized because of a problem with a common medical… Read More

If you live in the NYC and Westchester area, you might come across this Con Edison television commercial: Con Edison is tripling our investments in energy efficiency programs for the… Read More

Ms Marvel wrapped up its initial season with it’s finale, episode six titled No Normal. Here is my final episode and season review. Overall I loved the series but thought that the fin… Read More

I’ve been behind on my blogging, but I definitely wanted to catch up with the recent news that on June 24th, Michelle Kwan was officially inducted into the U.S. Olympic & Paralym… Read More

The Wife and I anxiously awaited  Ms Marvel episode 5 and found most of it enthralling and even informative.  Overall I thought it was worth watching, althoughI thought that this e… Read More

Even as Ms Marvel has passed the half way point, I am still finding the series to be intriguing. While it wasn’t perfect, I really enjoyed Episode 4, titled Seeing Red, especially fro… Read More

You would think that tech rank and file positions in Silicon Valley (as opposed to upper and executive management) would be where Asians would experience less bias, but that doesn’t s… Read More

When I first the saw this official clip, I really wanted to see episode 3 of Ms. Marvel, Destined. It has nothing to do with superheroes, but that is part of the charm of the show. Here are… Read More

I watched the second episode of Ms. Marvel along with the Wife and Number Two Son, and I liked it even better than the first!  The Wife and Number Two Son were initially skeptical whet… Read More

During the pandemic, my family picked up the habit of watching Marvel streaming TV series together, from Wandavision through Moon Knight.  With Ms. Marvel, Number Two Son said that he… Read More

Ten years after Linsanity, Frank Chi has created 38 At the Garden. The title is a reference to NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin scoring 38 points against Kobe Bryant’s LA Lakers. The… Read More

As a Navy veteran, one thing my father wanted to do is to see his name in the register of Navy veterans in the US Navy Memorial in Washington DC.  When the Wife and I finally took him t… Read More

(photo credit: Anita Navalta Bautista) A recent poll suggests that many Americans think that Asian Americans are more loyal to their country of origins than to the United States.  In co… Read More

Last week, actor James Hong, at age 93, *finally* received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: “Hong, 93, who was joined by celebrity guest speakers Daniel Dae Kim and Jamie… Read More

Back in October of last year, we reviewed the documentary ‘Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres,’ which was still making the film festival circuit (I beli… Read More

In honor of Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, here’s not one, not two, but eight recently or about to be released children’s books to check… Read More

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2022, and one of the most consequential events in APA history is the killing of Vincent Chin, whose murders never got the justice they deserved… Read More

(photo credit: Goldman Sachs) Goldman Sachs recently released a report on the outsized economic contributions of Asian Americans.  Highlights include Asian Americans creating 19% of hig… Read More

I saw someone retweet this P&G ad the other day, and I teared up after watching it: “Everyone has a name — and from birth through a lifetime of introductions, it becomes th… Read More

With the recent death of Norman Mineta, the Norman Y. Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story documentary is available for free streaming here, courtesy of the Mineta Legacy Project… Read More

The trailer for comedian Jo Koy’s movie Easter Sunday has just come out, and I found it hilarious.  He hits on many many things Filipino American and even puts the plot in Daly C… Read More

Former Secretary of Transportation and Japanese American Norman Y. Mineta died on Tuesday at age 90: “Norman Y. Mineta, a second-generation Japanese American who was held in an intern… Read More

A former colleague and friend Mike passed this recent Panda Express commercial to me that I had not yet seen. He was intrigued by the Mandarin version of Johnny Cash’s classic, Ring o… Read More

Eric Kim’s debut cookbook Korean American is an absolute joy to read and cook from. The essays are beautifully written (no surprise if you’ve ever perused Kim’s writing for… Read More

When I was offered the chance to get tickets to 42nd Street Moon‘s production of Fun Home playing at San Francisco’s Gateway Theater (April 21-May 8, 2022), I jumped at the chanc… Read More

Yup, that’s right — actor extraordinaire John Cho is adding author to his impressive resume with his debut middle grade novel, Troublemaker. Set in LA on April 29, 1992 as riots… Read More

Seeking Fortune Elsewhere is a delectable debut short story collection from Sindya Bhanoo. It opens with the story that won her the O. Henry Prize, Malliga Homes. Each story centers South As… Read More

Although today started out as a rainy, dreary Monday morning, this short 15 minute concert by the Linda Lindas, brought to you by NPR’s Tiny Desk program, really brightened my day.&nb&helli…Read More

Let’s Do Everything and Nothing is a lusciously illustrated children’s book by Julia Kuo about spending time with loved ones. It celebrates the big moments–like climbing a… Read More

I had the honor and pleasure of attending the San Francisco premiere of Everything Everywhere All At Once on Sunday, March 20th at the historic Castro Theater with Q&A afterwards with… Read More

Kelly Yang’s latest book New From Here is a middle grade reader about a young boy and his family during the initial outbreak of the coronavirus. It’s hard to believe that we&rsqu&hell…Read More