East West in the NYT

I got an exciting e-mail this morning -- it turns out one of the items from this issue's News Briefs page was mentioned in today's New York Times! It's about a recent study from Duke and Berkeley that shows just how important immigrant entrepreneurs are to the U.S. economy. It's nice to see one of our stories getting some attention from the mainstream media, especially in the high-profile Times!

"Sanjaya is love"

I am a Sanjaya fan. Are you? I never thought I would be. He won me over slowly. At first I thought he was awful as I thought of most of the male American Idol contestants. Sanjaya's performances were like those endured in high school talent shows and really bad karoake. But then last week, the chorus on his version of "Waiting on the World to Change" just stuck in my head, and now I hear myself singing it along with his honey-sounding and hopeful voice. And then he sang Diana Ross's "Aint No Mountain High Enough" which he got drowned out on, BUT if you listen to it on the American Idol website, you can hear how good he sounds in studio. Or have I just been brainwashed by his long torso, hula hoop moves, goofy smiles, and hair-dos?

Regardless, one thing I am sick of is hearing Paula and Diana Ross and whomever saying how sweet and what a wonderful spirit he has. Ross gushed: "Sanjaya is love" in the latest show. Puh-leeze. I think they're just fetishizing his Asian-ness. Sanjaya is peace and love. Sanjaya is the Dalai Lama. Sanjaya is Gandhi. Maybe Sanjaya is a big goofy fake. Sanjaya is a bad hairstyle. Sanjaya is a shrewd marketeer.

How are they getting all these love vibes off this kid? I just see a really nervous kid with a really nervous smile, and a good hairdresser. I have to admit, I don't watch full episodes and I don't TIVO. I just go to YouTube to get my latest Sanjaya fix. Are the other contestants also saying peaceful and kind words about the 17-year-old? Has he done something I don't know of?

This is my first time ever following AI and it's all because of the Asian American contestants.
I will try to catch next week's live performance though 'cos I'm just waiting.....waiting for a Sanjaya miracle.

An Editor's Folly - The Controversy over AsianWeek's "Why I Hate Blacks" column

It has been an interesting week out there. Sitting in what we call a happy go-lucky multicultural land where we paint pictures and tell stories where cultures don't collide but rather co-exist with beautiful results, i.e. our office, news of this week's AsianWeek fiasco brought us back to reality.

No, not to a reality of hate, ignorance and intolerance, but one where the gatekeepers of news have forgotten their responsibility and have hurt us all with one brash, rather ridiculous, mistake.

If you haven't read or heard of the "Why I Hate Blacks," column published by the San Francisco weekly paper, you can easily catch up by typing the phrase into Google. You'll be bombarded with results. And while AsianWeek has pulled the piece off it's site, we found it here: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/11132853/detail.html

Yes, there has been much said about the column already, but I suppose we would be remiss if we didn't give you the East West take on the matter. So here goes....

While the paper's editors might have apologized and the firing of 22-year-old Kenneth Eng, who penned the column, was more than appropriate, I am still left wondering. Not if such tensions between races exist, because let's be honest there are tensions between all cultures, races and people to some degree. We aren't really in the happy bubble yet, but making good progress...well we were. Anyway, there are and will be extremists with extreme points of view, but how in the HECK does a paper decide to give one such extremist an unedited column?

There are so many questions: Did the editors even read the piece? Did they think controversy is the way to go? Did they offer any type of counter column to a writer, i.e. Why I love Blacks? Okay maybe that is a little weird....Do they know they have a journalistic responsibility? Did they know this would reflect on all Asians? Okay, I'll stop.

But really, it makes me wonder.

And with all that has been said, i have come to a sad conclusion. That today's "ethnic" press ( i hate that term by the way) for the most part no longer serves the community the way they used to. Now, I don't know exactly what happened, but from my experience it sounds like this was the result of an effort to fill pages. It is a business model, a publishing business and not a journalistic endeavor.

Sure, there is the free speech argument. But there's a way to present such free speech. If you want to do a story on tensions between Blacks and Asians or between any two groups, good, go for it. But do a journalistic piece-interview people, get to the bottom of issues, create dialogue. Don't attack, and certainly don't give a column to someone that is only there to bash and spout racist remarks.

OK, I'm done.

Another interesting note from the week makes me wonder about the way we define "foreign" in a so-called melting-pot society. Perhaps we are due for a change in our dialogue and in how we see/respond to the word. When you think foreign-language press, do you think local or international? What does "foreign" mean to you?

Why do I ask? Read this tidbit about a recent Clinton campaign mess.