In September 2011, a protest movement called “Occupy Wall Street” appeared across the United States. Responding to a call by the anti-consumerism group Adbusters, protestors began congregating at what Adbusters called “the financial Gomorrah of America”: Wall Street, New York City. Soon, similar protest “occupations” mushroomed in many other cities from Washington DC to Seattle [...]
“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be [...]
Derek Nguyen is a multifaceted artist with a diversity of career accomplishments and personal experiences. He has worked as a writer, director, producer, and playwright on both films and stage dramas. And he is also very active in the Asian American arts scene, as he’s collaborated with Greg Pak, Risa Morimoto, Soomi Kim, as well [...]
Filmmaker Jennifer Thym is the creator of the fantasy web series LUMINA. Drawing upon inspiration as varied as web comics, cyberpunk, and manga, LUMINA centers around the story of Lumina Wong (played by JuJu Chan) who meets the proverbial handsome but mysterious stranger Ryder Lee (Michael Chan) and is plunged into a surreal world of [...]
“As we have said from the beginning of this unrest, the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people. But the United States has also been clear that we stand for a set of core principles. We believe that the universal rights of the Egyptian people must be respected, and their aspirations must [...]
Recently, there has been a series of high profile attacks on Asian Americans in Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay area. The former has involved assaults on Asian American students in the Philadelphia public school system, particularly South Philadelphia High School. The San Francisco violence has been more serious in nature with robberies, assaults, and even murders, particularly of elderly Asian immigrants.
For many people, the idea of a color blind society is a laudable and self-evident goal to aspire to. The very phrase evokes iconic images from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, in which he famously declared, “I have a dream that my four little children will [...]
“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past” — George Orwell The state of Arizona is known for many notable attractions: the majestic Grand Canyon, the scenic desert landscapes, luxurious vacation resorts, and more recently, thinly concealed examples of educational whitewashing. Arizona, after all, is home not only to [...]
In April 2010, the state of Arizona enacted a piece of legislation that incited a firestorm of controversy that extended far beyond the borders of the state itself. Popularly known as SB 1070, this law was hailed by supporters as an important step towards addressing concerns over Arizona’s “porous borders,” while it was challenged by [...]
There is an issue that is haunting Asian America. It’s a topic that is only talked about in whispers behind closed doors, safely out of the earshot of children. This problem entails a seemingly innocent concern that raises more disturbing questions. It involves a phenomenon that is more rare than Big Foot or Loch Ness [...]
The arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates in July 2009 brought the issue of racial profiling once again to the forefront of US public debate this summer. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct after being confronted by Cambridge, Mass. police officer James Crowley, who thought that Gates had broken into what turned out [...]
