SLANTING LEFT

Given the news today of a new Gallup poll that suggests Asian Americans are largely left-leaning (as well as secular), Junichi and I decided to "chat" about the findings together.

OW: Were you as surprised as I was by these findings? Let me first say - I think we'd really need to see some disaggregation here by ethnic group, age, geography and immigrant status. But even without that, I would not have thought that Asian Americans would have a higher proportion of self-described liberals than conservatives. Where have they all been hiding?


JS: Well, I am not surprised by the party affiliation data, which I think is the most meaningful survey result. The numbers there largely correlate to my general impression -- today, Asian Americans and Chicano/Latinos lean Democratic, but not remotely as strongly as African Americans.

I think the "Ideological Identification" question, however, sheds more light on how various groups think of the words "liberal," "moderate," and "conservative" -- as opposed to where they actually stand on an ideological spectrum.

Otherwise, how is it possible that the group that votes most consistently for Democrats (African Americans) is not also the group that most consistently identifies as liberal? I realize that Democrats today are hardly a "liberal" party, but they've been more liberal than the Republicans for several decades now.

Here is my theory. (To be clear, I have no data to back this up.) For many in the black community, the word "liberal" has strong associations with white leftists who are pro-choice, pro-union, anti-death penalty, pro-gay rights, anti-war, and pro-drug legalization, to name a few ideological issues. Though they vote for Democrats more than any other group, African American voters aren't very likely to line up with Michael Moore's positions on all social issues and are therefore more likely to identify as "moderate." Plus, the appeal of being conservative, in certain respects, has strong roots in black Christian communities in the South; thus, those self-identified "conservatives" still voted for Obama over McCain.

On the other hand, I suspect Asian Americans, in totality, are more likely to consider the word "conservative" to be one associated with Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the religious right. With so few Asian Americans an active part of any fundamentalist, Christian-rooted political movement, the percentage of "conservatives" is low.

In other words, I seriously doubt Asian Americans are more "liberal" than every other group if we look at specific issues. If you polled each group and asked the following specific questions ...

* Do you support a more progressive tax scheme in which Americans who make more than $100,000 will be taxed at a higher rate?
* Do you support lowering jail sentences for drug-related crimes?
* Do you support affirmative action?
* Do you support gay marriage?
* Do you believe the government should more actively regulate industry to lower pollution and other negative environmental externalities?
* Do you support a single-payer health care system?

... I would be shocked if Asian Americans were the group most likely to say yes.

As for disaggregation, I do think you'd see some interesting trends if you were to divide between Asian American ethnic groups, as well as immigrants vs. children of immigrants vs. those whose parents were born here in the United States.

One more thought: this poll reminds me of how the Republican Party needs to fundamentally reinvent itself if it wants to regain the White House and Congress again. During the last decade, the GOP did so much to alienate non-whites and non-Christians from its tent that it needs to figure out how to regain the trust of at least one of the three other major racial groups to stay afloat. It will only get worse as we inch closer to being a country with no majority race.

OW: I think you raise a good point about how the terms themselves should be questioned. This is a point Matt Yglesias raises too - that "liberal" isn't a terribly useful political term anymore.

I'm curious why you think Asian Americans associate "conservative" the far-right icons or movements you mention? Why an aversion there and not with other communities?

Here's a question I posed on Facebook...first, let's assume that this polling pool here is actually quite small since, as my friend Oiyan Poon astutely noted, Gallup spoke with "likely voters" which would tend to constrict the pool of Asian Americans based on citizenship rates. If, as you suggest, the wider AA community is less left-leaning as Gallup indicates...BUT that comprises people in the community who don't vote...do they really matter in terms of the political calculus? In other words, what's the more important statistic? How Asian American "likely voters" vote? Or how the whole of Asian America would theoretically vote...assuming they voted?

JS: I think the word "conservative" has been hijacked today to be synonymous "religious conservative." Much to the lament of secular fiscal conservatives, in 2010, the idea of demonstrating one's conservative credentials largely focuses on positions that sync up with Christian theology.

The majority of African Americans and Chicano/Latinos in the United States are Christian. Hence, those groups don't necessarily run away from the conservative label since some vote consistent with their faith-based principles. But as the Gallup poll shows, Asian Americans are the least likely of all four racial groups to attend any church. Thus, Asian Americans are inherently less likely to identify with a belief system that is rooted in the idea that we live in a "Christian nation."

As for your question about the more important statistic, I think that measuring the opinions of all Asian Americans is the most important. The last half-century of elections has produced just enough wide swings in voter turnout to suggest that we're only one hot issue away from having "unlikely" voters turn out at the polls.

Another thought: I wonder about the potential detrimental effects of this survey if both the Democrats and Republicans think of Asian Americans as a "liberal-leaning" group. Generally speaking, that's not a good thing.

Take gays and lesbians, an obvious "liberal-leaning" group. The Republicans know that there are far too few "Log Cabin Republicans" to cater to that group, in any way. Meanwhile, the Democrats feel little need to prioritize the gay and lesbian community's concerns because, well, who else are they going to vote for? President Obama can afford to delay advancing gay rights because he knows that they're not going to vote for Sarah Palin in 2012.

In contrast, Chicano/Latinos are often seen as a swing demographic. Thus, we see pols like Arnold Schwarzenegger and George W. Bush, when running for office, taking stances that are more immigrant-friendly than the GOP's platform 16 years ago. We see both Bush and Obama appointing Chicano/Latinos to high-profile positions (e.g., Alberto Gonzales, Sonia Sotomayor) in the hopes of locking in the Latino vote.

Both national parties have been ignoring Asian Americans forever. However, there's a strange irony that the more the Asian American community is seen as politically unaffiliated, the more likely their needs will be catered to during future election years.

--O.W.

THE PASSING OF GINA HOTTA

Very sad news...

Word comes down from the Bay Area that Gina Hotta died last night, apparently from a heart attack.

If you were involved in Asian American community issues in the Bay Area, it would be virtually impossible that you wouldn't have run into Gina at some point. I first met her as the host of the old radio show, "Inside/Eastside," one of the few Asian American-themed shows on public radio back in the day. (That show eventually evolved into APEX Express which is on KPFA in Berkeley; no doubt, they'll do something very special for her this week.)

She was easily the most consummate AA journalist I knew, constantly producing radio segments and writing for print. She was seemingly everywhere; I can't remember a community event I didn't see her at. I just got off the phone with Jeff Chang who was - shocked like I was - remarked about talking to Gina at the UC Berkeley walkout last week.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that GIna either formally or informally mentored an entire generation of AA journalists, myself included, who came of age in the Bay Area in the 1990s. The difference was that she probably outstripped us all in her passion and dedication; I can't really think of another figure that comes close. I was also always impressed how Gina came from an older generation of post-70s activists but had the open mind to stay current with new trends in culture and politics.

My heart hangs so heavy; this year alone has seen the untimely passings of Al Robles, Ron Takaki, and now Gina. I don't live up north any more but I can't imagine that the Bay isn't far emptier for their absences.

--O.W.

BEHIND THE WHITE HOUSE DOOR

james gets jimmied
Justine Lai's "Join or Die" series (NSFW)

Artist statement:

"In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.

I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness. It would be easy to let the images slide into territory that’s strictly pornographic—the lurid and hardcore, the predictably “controversial.” One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its “Fuck the Man” symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do."

A provocative artistic series to say the least. I do wonder, however, about the assumption that the office of the Presidency is typically seen as (prepare your rimshot): "impenetrable" given the huge wave of best-selling histories of different Presidents that, in my opinion, precisely aim to offer a portrait of them in "intimate and mortal" ways. If anything, Lai's portraits (all except one, perhaps) takes the presidential power dynamic and "humanizes" them only insofar as making the phrase "getting f---ed by the President" into something more literal rather than the common figurative sense.

Of course, for that reason, I get the feeling that the fan favorite among these will likely be the Buchanan portrait where Lai gets to turn the tables by pegging him instead. Of course, there is also a certain irony that it should be Buchanan given 1) the rumors of his sexual orientation and 2) he's reviled as one of the worst Presidents in history, having done his fair share (arguably) of screwing over the nation. Is Lai's portrait some form of creative payback? (If so, one can only imagine what G.W.'s portrait will look like. And now that I've imagined it, I wish I hadn't).

There's also something amusing in realizing how many people will likely relearn their history of Presidential succession once they cease to be able to recognize the obvious ones such as Washington or Lincoln in order to ascertain, "wait, which President was getting his spank on? Was that Grant or Jackson?"

One last thought: Lai doesn't discuss race in her statement but that has to be the (blushing) elephant in the room, no? (I can only imagine the response this series will get from Angry AZN types...and no, I don't mean Phil Yu). Speaking of which...

(Link: Angry Asian Man)

--O.W.

WED, MARCH 18TH: PUBLIC STEPS

This is going to be held at Cal State Long Beach...

--O.W.

A SONG FOR OURSELVES PREMIER THIS SAT

Back in 1997, I had the distinct honor of working on a reunion concert for A Grain of Sand, arguably the first self-identified Asian American musical group, a folk trio that originally formed in the early 1970s between Nobuko Miyamoto, William "Charlie" Chin and Chris Iijima.

A Grain of Sand were important beyond just their historical stature - having come out of the Asian American Movement of the late 1960s, the group were tackling any number of critical - and complex - social and racial issues through their music at a time where Asian Americans were still largely invisible in popular media and culture.

All three members went on to continue their careers in the arts and music, especially Chris Iijima who put another album in 1982 with Chin called Back to Back (he was also a law professor outside of his musical life).

Sadly, Chris passed away a little over three years ago, on 12/31/05. A new documentary by Tad Nakamura pays tribute to his life and legacy and it will be premiered in Los Angeles this upcoming Saturday night. I've seen the film and it was wonderful - extremely well-made and powerful in its message and the history is covers.

Accompanying the film will be appearances by Nobuko and Charlie, as well as performances by the Blue Scholars, Kiwi and Bambu. You can find more info on the film here.

Also, DJ Phatrick, formerly DJ for Native Gunz (now hosting the weekly Devil's PIe party), has put together a mixtape in honor of the film's premier: A Song For Ourselves Mixtape which features songs from all of the above artists noted in this post.


Here's one of my favorite songs by Chris, from Back to Back called "Asian Song."

Chris Iijima: Asian Song
From Back to Back (East/West World Records, 1982)

--O.W.

MIND. BLOWN.

(as seen on Angry Asian Man)

--O.W.

ASIAN WEEK BOWS OUT

another one bites the digital dust

Just read this on Angry Asian Man: looks like Asian Week, is ceasing publication as a print publication and instead, will go web-only.

This shouldn't be a huge surprise given the current climate for print newspapers - even without the global meltdown, any newspaper would have its challenges and I'm assuming the further disappearance of ad dollars has only exacerbated the issue.

Asian Week - which has been in print for well over 20 years - has long inspired ambivalent reactions from the Asian American community. As AAM points out, the insane Kenneth Eng debacle from last year was a huge black eye on their editorial process, but long before that, Asian Week often came under fire...less for their content and more because their publishers - the Fangs - have political ties (to the GOP) that those on the Left called into question.

Provided, I don't read the paper with any regularity but my own history with them goes back around 15 years and over that time, I always found their news coverage on AA issues to be exceptional, especially in looking at stories that otherwise would go ignored via mainstream press. Whatever the politics of their owners, I don't recall seeing that creep into their editorial content.

I have a special place in my heart for Asian Week since it's where I got my start as a "professional" journalist, back in 1994 when they gave me a column to write (thankfully, very little of it still available online) despite not having much previous experience. That only lasted a year or so but it was a good place to start, especially with the kind of freedom I had to muse. Later in the '90s, I started writing feature stories on them on Asian American arts and culture and I always considered it an important place to start honing my craft as a journalist and writer.

So part of me is sad to see the paper go the way of so many other publications. Hopefully, they can continue to contribute solid reporting via an online presence but for the old schooler that I can be, I'm mourning a little today.

--O.W.

WHY CAN'T AZNS GET ALONG?

While I find it hard to approve of such wholesale deployment of stereotypes (not to mention excessive use of the other f-word), even I had to guffaw aloud at some of the punchlines here, e.g. rhyming "dry cleaner" with "wife beater").

No doubt, there some Movement-era folk looking upon this thinking, "I marched on Sproul...for this?"

Thanks to Todd Inoue.

--O.W.

YOWZERS

--O.W.

A CHAT WITH KEN LEUNG

the ghost whisperer
One more Lost-related post (and a self-plug). I interviewed Ken Leung earlier this spring and among other things, we talked about his role on Lost and how challenging it's been for him given his approach to acting. Leung doesn't do interviews often but I found him to be an exceptionally thoughtful and candid person to talk to. Asian Pacific Arts Magazine has the three-part interview in their new issue.

And here's one of my favorite scenes Leung's done:

--O.W.

HAROLD AND KUMAR: UP IN SMOKE AGAIN

When Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle debuted in 2004, it was a milestone of sorts - a mainstream, gross-out, stoner comedy with two Asian American men cast as leads. Sure, the humor was juvenile and unapologetically male, there was everything from naked breasts to literal bathroom humor, and a dream sequence featuring an anthropomorphalized bag of weed. Do The Right Thing this was not.

But it did represent an achivement of sorts, symbolically to be sure, but also commercially. The movie had enough of a cult following to warrant a sequel (not to mention revitalize Neal Patrick Harris' career, a remarkable feat on its own), thus suggesting that - hey, Asian American leads won't kill your film. I hope the producers of 21 are pondering this.

The film's sequel, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is an achievement of a kind too, proof that Asian Americans have made it far enough into the Hollywood machine that they can make perfectly mediocre mainstream fare as much as the next folks. Woo hoo, the promised land!

In all seriousness, it's not like anyone was expecting something approaching genius. I was hoping for "adequately funny," something on the level, at best, of a 40 Year Old Virgin or even Superbad (and yeah, there's a huge difference in the quality of funny between those two flicks).

The laugh-o-meter here was somewhere closer to, oh, Walk Hard, which is to say: not that funny. John Cho and Kal Penn are fun enough to watch at times but there's little new creative soil for either to plow. The funniest single scene was probably when Cho shows up in the library stacks, goth-ed out. It lasted all of a few seconds and he didn't even speak but just the sight of him in masscara was good enough. Penn had fewer moments here than in the previous film - the giant bag of weed returned (anatomically correct no less) but that joke really only works once. And while we're keeping score on this kind of thing: too much Rob Cordury, just a touch too much Neil Patrick Harris, and not enough Chris Meloni. And oh yeah, either too much or not enough pubic shots, depending on your taste.

So, in the end, it was "meh" but the thing is...I didn't feel like, "oh crap, we blew our chance!" And maybe that says something more than the film, on its own, can say...that the fact that an Asian American-lead comedy can be mediocre seems ordinary and harmless rather than a hand-wringing disaster. Of course, it helps that the film also is already in the black after the first weekend, earning a very respectable $14M (the original only made $18M total in theaters). Even if the flick has earned middling reviews, the monetary gains won't hurt Kal Penn or John Cho's future chances and may help open that golden door for other Asian American actors and filmmakers to walk through.

Let me end by throwing this question out: the sexual politics in this film are not particularly glowing - not to anyone's surprise of course - but I wonder how many of the men, so huffy puffy at Falling From Grace are going to raise any issues with this flick? (Yeah, I just went there).

Let me also add: why does it mean when a writing and directing team of all White men can make a more commercially successful franchise lead by Asian American men than most Asian American filmmakers? I'm not asking this rhetorically - I'm seriously curious how this happens.

--O.W.

MR. RAP SUPREME

ghostface spinna

This might be of interest to folks: I recently interviewed Jeff "Chairman" Mao of ego trip fame on the eve of the new Miss Rap Supreme show on VH1 (just two weeks in and already with more beef than a Costco butchery).

Surprisingly, despite his high profile as a journalist/writer and DJ/collector, I found relatively few other interviews out there on the interweb and so my conversation with Jeff covered a broad range of topics in terms of his own personal history as well as professional insights on everything from hip-hop to music criticism to what makes compelling reality television. It's a long interview but I think it makes for a good read (biased as I am).

If you're ever in New York, be sure to roll through APT on Saturday night to see Mao and his friends spin.

By the way, this interview launches what I hope will be a series of Q&As I'll be doing for UCLA's fantastic Asia Pacific Arts Magazine. They've become, to me, the premier resource on Asian American arts/culture over the last few and I'm proud to be able to work with them. Coming up soon: an interview with actor Ken Leung from Lost.

--O.W.

WAVING THE FLAG

hell hath no fury
A question for the informed Poplicks readership:

Has anyone written anything cogent on the rise of Chinese American nationalism in the last few months? This is a phenom I've seen manifested with the debates around the Olympics in China but I have yet to find much in terms of analysis - it's not something I've found discussed in much depth on conventional political sites but I'm assuming at least someone has tried to take it on.

--O.W.

PLANET B-BOY

Go see this movie.

Just goes to show...for all the gains Asian Americans have made in feature filmmaking, our documentary skills kind of rock.

Saying.

--O.W.

RISING SONS

odd man in?
I caught this very, very interesting story on NPR yesterday: "Male Birth Rate Among Asian Americans Studied".

Here's the short version: Columbia Univ. economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund studied the 2000 Census and found that, for Chinese, Korean and Asian Indian American parents, those with two daughters (as their first two children) were 50% more likely to have a son for their third child, compared to White families (who, in this case, are the normative control group I'm assuming). This simply isn't naturally possible, suggesting that there is some kind of sex selection going on though the researchers have been very careful not to draw conclusions as to what form said selection takes since they didn't collect data on that part of the question.

Here's the personal anecdote: I've known at least two Asian American families growing up where the parents had four daughters. Not that I ever asked the parents but you just assume, in those cases, they're trying for that son and finally gave up.

Here's getting back to Almond/Edlund's study. I took a look at the summary version of their research (warning: you need to be logged into a university system to access) which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Some findings worth sharing:

The son-biased ratio (SBR) is apparently new - there was no evidence of such a bias in the 1990 Census. This suggests one of two things (at least): sex selection was less popular then (unlikely) or sex selection technology is more popular now (more likely).

The 1.5:1 SBR at third parity (i.e. after two daughters) is actually higher than what it is in India (1:39:1) though still lower than China in 1990 (2:25 : 1) though the restrictions put on by the one-child rule in China goes a long, long way to explaining how ridiculously out-of-whack their SBR tends towards. However, the fact that it's higher here compared to India (and I think South Korea as well) could also bolster the argument that sex selection methods and technology are more readily available/accessible in the U.S. than elsewhere.

The study compares Asian Americans to Whites (Whites show no statistically significant bias one gender or another) though I'd be curious to see what it looks like compared with African American and Latino American populations. I would still expect that the Asian American SBR to be higher, regardless, 1) because I think patriarchal preference for sons is more entrenched and 2) I think sex selection is less ethically challenging for Asian Americans compared to say, Catholic-raised Latinos (this presumes abortion is one primary method of sex selection).

"Male bias...was true irrespective of the mother's citizenship status" - which suggests that it may not just be immigrant families, but also American-raised families who exhibit a SBR.

"SBR were found despite the absence of many of the factors advanced to rationalize son bias in [Asia] such as China's one-child policy, high dowry payments (India), patrilocal marriage patterns (all three countires) or reliance on children for old age support and physical security." In other words, the SBR in the U.S. makes even less sense here than it does elsewhere in the world. But then again, it's not like patriarchy has ever required much rationalization to assert itself.

It should be noted that in families where a first-born son is present, there's no subsequent SBR with future children, meaning that one could read this finding as suggesting that what Asian Americans really want is at least one son but past that, they're fine with daughters. But they really want that son.

Small aside, but the study claims that Chinese, Koreans and Indians, collectively, make up less than 2% of the overall U.S. population. Accepting that the study is leaving out the second biggest Asian ethnic group (Filipinos), I think their math is wrong. Check it yourself: those three populations - not even accounting for people of mixed-Chinese/Korean/Indian descent - would still be over 2% of the total U.S. population, according to Census 2000 figures.

So what does this all mean?

For starters, let's just ask the unspoken question here: are Asian Americans more likely to use abortion as a means for sex selection? Given the wide availability and affordability of prenatal sex testing and abortion (compared to ineffective or more expensive means of sex selection), it's a rational economic argument that, if you were going to sex select, testing + abortion would be the way to go.

I was looking at the CDC's abortion surveillance stats but given that 1) I'm not a quant guy and 2) it's past midnight, I'm not sure if these tell us anything meaningful since, 1) Asian American women are aggregated with Native Americans and others under the always-popular "Other" category so it's impossible to parse the numbers down just for Asian Americans, let alone just Chinese/Korean/Indian. 2) Table 14 suggests that Other women (presumably including Asian Americans) over the age of 30 are more likely to pursue an abortion relative to White and Blacks in the same respective age group but since Table 14 measures overall abortions rather than per capita, I'm not sure one can read the chart as suggesting that the abortion rates are actually higher within those populations vis a vis others. Maybe someone who is more stat-trained and/or awake than I can crunch that.

Even taking the abortion angle off the table - and I noticed a pro-life group is already using the study to suggest that Asian Americans are abortion-crazy - the study confirms something that most of "us" already knew: Asian American society has a patriarchal slant (pun intended), at least when it comes to prioritizing sons. If someone else has a counter-read to this conclusion, I'd be curious to hear what it is.

Lingering questions: First of all, I find it interesting that among my circle of Asian American couples, everyone wanted daughters - not necessarily exclusively, but most certainly at least one, if not the only child they'd ever have. That was certainly true for Sharon and I and we feel pretty lucky we ended up with a daughter[1] (albeit a daughter who doesn't always eat her veggies and is in the middle of a worrisome princess phase but that's another story). But I was struck by how common this seemed to be with other people we know. This could suggest that, given a generation or so, the SBR might fade within Asian America, at least among 2nd and 3rd generation APIs (something, quite notably, the study doesn't parse but perhaps they didn't have access to the necessary data to do so).

Second, and this is a bit of an aside, but the study notes that the biological norm for male/female is 1.05 sons born for every daughter. I'm no evolutionary scholar (but if you are, chime in!) but wouldn't it make sense for that to go the other way? Wouldn't, from an evolutionary point of view, having a higher ratio of women being born be more advantageous, especially since most women only bear one child at a time, with a long gestation period? I don't see the benefit in producing an excess of men when it's really women you need to propagate the species.


[1] This was rather freaky but I was doing an image search for this post by googling "three asian babies" and a picture of Ella popped up as the 6th top find. Like whoa.

--O.W.

DUK DUK GOOSE

beyond redemption?

NPR's All Things Considered picked Long Duk Dong to be part of their "Character Studies" series. (Listen here).

For those of you unaware (read: those of you not born in the 1980s), LDD is pretty much the gold standard in modern f---ed up portrayals of Asian men in Hollywood (Mickey Rooney in yellowface being the older gen's favorite). Everything from the gong that announces his presence, to his accent, to that hair, to, well, everything has traditionally offended Asian Americans to no small degree.

I was just a tad too young to really get into the John Hughes films of the '80s (or maybe I just held little interest in the school/love lives of suburban teens when I was already living it) so I never saw 16 Candles until much later and I have to say...even though I "got" why LDD puts such a black eye on the game, I couldn't help but think he gets a little overvillified.

Don't get me wrong - John Hughes should be thoroughly embarrassed at himself and god knows Gedde Watanabe hasn't had an easy time living down the role but all said, I guess part of me - the Asian geek with insecurity issues - kind of liked how at ease LDD was with himself, how unabashed (read: oblivious) he was in his sense of self. He was a hedonist who didn't really care about what people around him - let alone older White folks - thought of him. He was just trying to do him.

And lest we forget, for all the bemoaning about Asian male asexuality and what not...the Donger got the girl (a white girl at that).

Just putting it out there.

Ok, let's hear it now.

--O.W.

FALLING FROM GRACE

needing more than luck?

Even though I've enjoyed this weekend, hanging out with my daughter while my wife takes a much needed/earned vacation, I'm a little sad I'm not up in San Francisco for this year's Asian American film festival. This is the first time in 11 years that I won't be attending and it is, by far, one of my all-time favorite events.

That said, part of me is glad I'm not there because I feel out of the Asian American film loop at the moment and I think being at the fest would just remind me of how disconnected I am right now. It's not for lack of interest but lack of time. I certainly want to get back into the mix, not the least of which is so I can update my Chasing Chan site.

In terms of a late pass, I recently became aware of the mini-controversy over Fay Ann Lee's new feature film, Falling For Grace, a romantic comedy/Cinderella story (you can see the trailer at the link before). I say "mini" because, though the internet has a tendency to inflate things beyond their actual size, this film has mapped onto so few people's radar, I don't think you can really call it a major dust-up.

The main sides are represented by the Fighting 44s on one side and Reappropriate's Jenn Fang on the other. The main crux of it turns around (drum roll): Asian female/White male interracial romance. Call it Asian American gender relations catnip.


CONTINUE READING...

In Falling For Grace, Grace Yang, an upwardly mobile Chinese American investment banker[1] is mistaken (by White people, natch) for the scion of the Shanghai Tang family, ends up meeting a very eligible (White) bachelor (modeled on JFK, Jr. no less) and hilarity and romance ensue. Presumably.

The Fighting 44s, self-appointed defenders of Asian American masculinity, not surprisingly, crap all over the film on premise alone: "More brainwashing material for Asian girls to chew on."

Their stance doesn't surprise me since it springs from the the same kind of reactionary, masculine politics that certain Asian American men have carried as cross, shield and sword since the 1960s. I'm sympathetic to parts of it - namely the critique of how absent Asian men are in popular American media - but the ways in which it's oft-used to bludgeon Asian American women (and curiously, feminists) seems self-defeating at best and retro-grade patriarchal at worst.

I'm more surprised at Fang's decision to support the film despite the fact that she - like mostly everyone - hadn't actually seen the film yet[2]. I usually find her analyses to be nano-blade sharp, with plenty of nuance and insight to go around, but here, she stakes her defense on a curious argument:

" it occurs to me that if we are to begin challenging the perception that Asian Americans consume like Whites (thus undermining efforts to create Asian American-oriented media), we need to demonstrate a willingness to support Asian American-created art and film. So, I hope that regardless of how you feel about the AF/WM coupling in this film, you will take the time to see this movie (and give it a chance to speak for itself), and thus help support the overall cause of funding more Asian American-produced independent media."

This too is based on a very old set of politics, one that I find similarly outdated and though nowhere near as noxious as the belief that a portrayal of interracial romance is an automatic sign of "selling out," I'm no less exasperated with the implied ethnic/racial obligation that comes with it.

This is something I discussed, along with my friend and colleague Hua Hsu, back in 2003 when Better Luck Tomorrow came out and there was that massive grassroots push to get Asian Americans out to see the film. But BLT was hardly the first or last film to make this pitch and I've always been skeptical of the underlying logic.

In essence, it seems to suggest that whether the film is good or bad, people should see it as a way to empower the director and producers and presumably, if this takes off like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it will be one more step in the empowerment of Asian Americans to take control of our own media images. Distill it down from there and what you basically get is, "support it because it's Asian American" and that seems like a remarkably reductive logic - no less so than arguing that one should support Obama simply because he's Black and thus, might help reform failing federal civil rights legislation[3].

But shelf the ideological problems for moment and consider a few pragmatic ones:

Demographically, Asian Americans rarely have wielded the kind of clout to - alone - make any film project "successful." That's why - as Justin Lin has said in many interviews - Hollywood studios rarely even bother to break AAs down into a separate viewer bloc; we're usually lumped in with Whites. The most successful Asian American films of the last 26 years - from Chan Is Missing to Joy Luck Club to Better Luck Tomorrow - have always depended on the patronage of non-Asian viewers in order to ensure that success. I'm not claiming AA viewers make no difference at all; by filling seats, we're adding to the overall box office totals, but it's hardly the case that, as a demographic bloc, our support is really the one that matters most[4]. The mainstream success of practically any Asian American film I can think of depends on attracting a large number of non-AA viewers.

Second, even in the case where you have a "success," the fruits it bears are questionable. Wayne Wang's early career is particularly instructive here. With the exception of the uniformly brilliant Chan Is Missing, Wang's next three American[5] films were all family melodramas: Dim Sum, Eat a Bowl of Tea and of course, The Joy Luck Club. Wang's success - both critically and commercially - with those films, I would suggest, played an important role in how future Asian American features would get greenlit/funded[6]. I don't think it's a coincidence that throughout the remainder of the 1990s and well into this decade, most of more prominent Asian American features you saw follow were also family melodramas (at least in part, if not wholly), from Mina Shum's Double Happiness to Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet to Chris Chan Lee's Yellow to Gene Cajayon's The Debut to Alice Wu's Saving Face. There are many, many more one could name and personally, if I never see one more Asian American family melodrama come down the pipeline, it will be too soon (but that's an essay for another time).

Third, if we look to other examples, it's not very auspicious. My Big Fat Greek Wedding earned over $100,000,000 - far more successful and profitable than any comparable Asian American feature but I haven't seen that translate into a sea-change in Greek American representations (not that I follow them that closely though) and while it's likely helped Nia Vardalos to get more of her scripts noticed, she's far from some Greco American Spielberg (or even Spike Lee).

Again, it goes back to the consumer demographic. Tyler Perry has become a major force as a director and writer because his films consistently make money off of a viewer base that actually wields clout: African Americans. Likewise, I don't think we're far away from seeing a new generation of Latino American filmmakers come up in a big way. But Greek Americans won't make or break a film, let alone fuel a community media movement. Asian Americans may be larger in numbers but certainly, it's a disjointed community and even with 100% support (which won't exist anyway), we're talking...5-7%? That's good enough for phone companies to call my house, confusing my JA wife by trying to sell her long distance service in Mandarin. But that's not going to attract much interest by Sonyfoxwaltwarnerviaelectric to see after our needs for diverse representation.

I do agree that as more Asian American filmmakers, producers and movie execs rise in stature and influence, this could have some positive benefits for the community though, once again, the past reveals some uneven results. Wang, for example, was able to parlay the success of Joy Luck Club into a healthy career for himself but notably, up until this year, with his two new films based on the short stories of Oakland's Yiyun Li, he stopped making films dealing with explicit "Asian American content" for nearly 15 years (J.Lo romantic comedy though? Check!) I don't begrudge Wang that - by the time he made Smoke, Wang had made four significant Asian American films already so and creatively, I could see why he'd want to move onto something different.

Better Luck Tomorrow gave Justin Lin's career an immeasurable push, allowing him to direct two Hollywood flicks and he was able to parlay that back into his recent Asian American comedic feature, Finishing the Game. And, as he has noted, it was only because he was helming the movie that allowed him to cast Sung Kang in FF3, giving the movie some added "color" and an interesting Asian American anti-hero. However, the film has been rightfully criticized for having fairly limited portrayals of Asian women. One step forward, one step back?

My point is that we certainly need more Asian Americans in positions of media power but the road to greater diversity in our representations is likely to be fraught with bumps and dips along the way. And so this brings me back to the crux of my long-winded polemic:

You need to first start with a "good" film. That's obviously subjective but what I sense in Fang's argument is that the film's formal merits - narrative, acting, production design, etc. - are secondary. She asks: "how will we get funding for quality storylines if we won't even demonstrate our interest in films with Asians in front of and behind-the-scenes?" One of the commenters of her blog adds: "Until Asians become part of the mainstream film making, we should not be so critical of their work."

This may be classic cart vs. horse but shouldn't the more important question first be: does the actor or filmmaker deserve our interest to begin with? I'm not talking about Falling For Grace or the people who worked on it - I just mean any film. I can't see how blind support - absent any sense of quality control, let alone critical evaluation - is a helpful, progressive strategy.

My sister-in-law, who is Asian American, is a working actress and as supportive as I am for her and her career, that doesn't mean I automatically would cosign on any project she does, independent of considering its content or qualities (as I would with any project). Case in point: she was Fook Mi in Austin Powers: Goldmember, ok? I admit, when that movie pops up on television, I have that moment of, "oh cool, it's Di!" when she first shows up but that's then followed by, "man, I know this is Austin Powers and what not but the Japanese schoolgirl twins feel kind of icky to me." If I'm not about to cut the godmother of my daughter that degree of blind slack, I'm sure as hell not about to rally the community around any film project without some level of evaluation (let alone one with a weak trailer and middling reviews)[7].

The last point I want to make here is that if you look at the increase in the quantity of Asian American feature filmmaking, it is remarkable. I was on the film festival committee for the S.F. Int'l Asian American Film Festival from 2000 through 2006 and just in that time alone, the number of AA feature films has increased exponentially - so much so that in any given year - especially now - the number of feature film submissions to the festival is staggering.

Let me be very blunt in saying this: the vast majority of those submitted films are flat-out terrible[8]. We're talking bad enough to invoke a mercy rule during evaluation screenings. Do these films have well-meaning - even likable - Asian Americans directing/producing/acting in them? Absolutely.

Does this mean they are deserving of our support? Absolutely, positively not.

And this is telling: if a community-based media organization - whose entire raison d'etre is to support independent Asian American filmmaking - decides to pass on dozens of these projects, why would we ever expect "the community," as a whole, to get behind them?[9]

To me, there are so many opportunities to support Asian American films that if one happens to take an L -whether because it deserves to and just happens to be unlucky - it's not as if there won't be another one following behind it in a few weeks/months time. Personally, I'm left dizzy trying to keep up with what Angry Asian Man reports on in terms of new films. True, many of them still need distribution and that's still the golden threshold to cross. But again, not every AA film deserves distribution, at least based on the idea that it being AA is some how "good enough."

Ten years ago, seeing any kind of AA film in theaters was remarkable. These days, even though it isn't quotidian, it's hardly unusual either.

In other words, there's a lot out there to see.

Choose wisely. [10]

Notes:

[1] I'm surprised that with all the brouhaha around the film, there doesn't seem to be much of a class critique of a protagonist with upwardly mobile ambitions. Not having seen the film, maybe there's a reason for this. Perhaps Tang pulls of a Michael Clayton, brings down a corrupt firm, and then joins AIWA.

[2] I should preface all this by noting I haven't seen the film, only the trailer. But if I can be blunt: based on the trailer, this looks simply terrible. I like romantic comedies and it's probably not fair to judge a film by its trailer but there is little I can see here that makes the film look remotely appealing. The whole set-up is ridiculously gimmicky, the acting doesn't seem particularly good and the "funny" scenes included are anything but. The racial romantic politics are completely irrelevant to my skepticism (though, to be sure, it's not a big selling point for me either). According to Fang: "The trailer doesn't really do the film justice at all." I can only hope she's right.

[3] Given that Fang has quite eloquently explained why supporting Obama should go beyond simple identity politics, I'm all the more bewildered by her stance on the film.

[4] If anyone can show me marketing analysis that says otherwise, I would genuinely like to see that research.

[5] I'm excluding his obscure, Hong Kong feature, Life is Cheap...But Toilet Paper Is Expensive.

[6] Just to undermine my own theory, the fact that most of these films I go on to mention required hustling up funding just to get a shoe string budget might suggest their popularity isn't because people are rushing to give money to make them.

[7] The SF Chron reviewer panned the film except to say: "It is only when Grace is with her mother (Elizabeth Sung) and father (Clem Cheung) that "Falling for Grace" hints at what might have been. There is a genuine poignancy in these moments as the dutiful daughter tries to care for aging parents who are proud and stubborn. These scenes are terrific." See: the trope of the family melodrama strikes again!

[8] The increase in submissions and general paucity in quality are related by the fact that technological access to filmmaking has created a massive wave of amateur filmmakers who have the ability to "make movies" in ways that previous generations did not. The problem is that, in most of these cases, the ease of acquiring the means to filmmaking has not been matched by a mastery in actual filmmaking education, let alone prowess.

[9] I haven't been on the film festival committee since I moved out of the Bay Area in 2006 so I have no way of knowing if Falling For Grace was ever submitted to the SFIAAFF but the fact that it wasn't programmed either this year or last year suggests to me that it didn't make the grade. I have no hard evidence to support this so it's purely a conjecture. But I also know, in the past, the festival has routinely passed on "high profile" Asian American features because, frankly, the staff thought the movies were of poor quality, regardless of profile.

[10] Of the Asian American films I have seen in the last year, I thought In Between Days was actually good. I thought Baby was overly derivative but still powerful in moments. Shanghai Kiss was great for Ken Leung fans, a poor movie otherwise. Both of Wayne Wang's new films are decent but uneven. Same could be said of Finishing the Game which had some flat-out hilarious moments but didn't go the distance while I found Undoing ambitious but ultimately lacking. Same could be said of Americanese (love Eric Byler, wasn't crazy about his adaptation). That's eight films I just rattled off. See my point?

--O.W.

A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING?

AZN LUV!
A few sites are making notice of the fact that Lucy Liu's character on Cashmere Mafia kissed an Asian American male character the other night.

On the lips, no less!

Some have opined that this may be the first time this has ever happened on primetime network television.

I'm intrigued by this idea and two things come to mind.

1) I think people are wrong about this. Asians have been on television - albeit rarely in roles we'd want to champion - since practically the invention of the damn thing. Insofar as that's true, there must have been some previous instance and my guess is that it would have happened in the 1970s. I'd put money on that. Seriously, there lurks some old "Love Boat" or "Fantasy Island" where AZNs lock lips. Doesn't PBS count? Or how about Pat Morita? Margaret Cho? Nobu McCarthy? [1]

2) Even if it's not the first time, the fact that no one can precisely remember the last time they saw it happen says a lot. Volumes. So regardless if it is technically the first or not, it's rare enough that it strikes us as unusual whereas practically any other ethnic group in America takes for granted that intra-racial romance is alive and well on the airwaves. Which is rather depressing.

As is the fact that "Asian American kiss" turns up 8 finds in google, almost all related to this very question.


[1]Even though they're technically not Asian American, I think it's splitting hairs to conveniently overlook Sun and Jin on Lost. Ok, sure, their characters are Korean but when I see them smooching, I'm not thinking, "oh, that's sweet. Too bad neither is Asian American." It's rare enough to just see Asians getting their kiss on primetime t.v.; if it's about reassuring ourselves that we find one another, you know, desirable/attractive, then I'll take Sun and Jin, citizenship be damned!

--O.W.

ASIAN AMERICAN INTERRACIAL DATING: REVISITED

not hot enough?

Every so often, I like to keep up with the current state of research on interracial dating/marriage patterns, especially as it relates to Asian Americans. I don't need to tell anyone within that community that it's a never-ending source of tension and controversy.

The problem I've long had with this debate - besides the over-heated attitudes you're likely to encounter from both men and women (but especially the men) is that it's long rested on anecdotal "evidence" that people use to trump the growing body of social research on the topic. I get it - for many people (*cough cough* the men especially), it's the quotidian experience of witnessing Asian American out-dating that stirs such visceral reactions; digging through academic research isn't their bag (even if may be mine).

I recently saw this piece, on Slate.com, written by Columbia Business School professor Ray Fisman, about a series of articles he and his collaborators are publishing based on data collected from speed-dating experiments in Chicago. Their proposed findings are quite fascinating, even though some of them simply confirm what most people already knew: straight men are into looks but are intimidated by women they find either smarter and/or more ambitious than they are. Likewise, women value intelligence over looks and don't have a problem with seeking out mates who are smarter or more ambitious.

However, part of what the study also looks at is interracial dating preferences. The complete study is available, in PDF form, here, and is worth looking at even for those who've never taken a course in quantitative data analysis.

Here are some of the highlights, especially as they relate to some of the assumptions people make re: gendered preferences for interracial dating.

1) For Slate, Fisman writes: "We also found that East Asian women did not discriminate against white men (only against black and Hispanic men). As a result, the white man-Asian woman pairing was the most common form of interracial dating—but because of the women's neutrality, not the men's pronounced preference."

This - I think - is a very interesting hypothesis and it's in line with other studies on Asian American dating preferences that suggest the high level of Asian female outmarriage has as much to do - if not more - with contact opportunities created by Asian American geographic/social integration than specific racial preferences, per se. Anyone who is interested to see other research on that hypothesis should read the works of OSU's Zhenchao Qian.

2) Fisman notes, in the study, that when adjusted for controls, most women - Asian and otherwise - exhibit a strong same race preference for their partners, significantly more so than men. In other words, men are fairly equal opportunity when it comes to who they date, unlike women:

"White women were more likely to choose white men; black women preferred black men; East Asian women preferred East Asian men; Hispanic women preferred Hispanic men. But men don't seem to discriminate based on race when it comes to dating. A woman's race had no effect on the men's choices."

That should come as some comfort to paranoid Asian men...but what Fisman notably excludes from the Slate piece is a rather despairing finding that appears in the study itself:

"For male partners, our main finding is that Asians generally receive
lower ratings than men of other races.20 In fact, when we run the regressions separately for each race, we find that even Asian women find white, black, and Hispanic men to be more attractive than Asian men. "

(No doubt, many a voice out there, right now, is saying, "no sh--, Sherlock.")

The upside, if there is one to this, is that when one controls for attractiveness, then the bias disappears. In other words, the main factor that makes Asian men less desirable is their perceived attractiveness (or lack thereof). Therefore, if you're a good looking Asian dude - rejoice! You are now on equal footing with other men.

3) However...guess what? That bias runs both ways:

"female Asian partners are consistently rated as less attractive, though we also find that black females receive significantly lower ratings relative to whites. As above, we find that when these regressions are run separately for each race, even Asian men find white, black, and Hispanic women to be more attractive than Asian women."

Basically Asians, in general, get low marks for their attractiveness rating from all races - ourselves included. Ouch.

By the way: one thing the study notes is that, least likely to be drawn to Asian men and women, on the basis of their attractiveness rating: Latinos. No explanation is given for this but pop theorists: go wild.

4) Lastly, on Slate, Fisman wrote, "We found no evidence of the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women." However, what needs to be said here is not that said preference doesn't exist at all...it's only that, measured against the white men in the study, there was no overall preference. That shouldn't be surprising; I think Fisman might have misunderstood the stereotype: it's not that white men - writ large - prefer East Asian women. The stereotype is that there's a "certain kind of white man" who prefers East Asian women. But that's a study for another time.

(I might have more to add to this later but it's some interesting ideas to mull over in the meantime).

--O.W.