Elaine Low

Elaine Low is an L.A.-based writer and amateur baker with a weakness for pie. The former managing...

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:16:00 -0800

Elaine Low is an L.A.-based writer and amateur baker with a weakness for pie.

The former managing editor (and current blog co-editor!) of Mochi magazine, Elaine has contributed to publications such as Jezebel, Audrey, and Hyphen. She graduated from Dominican University summa cum laude with a degree in journalism, and spent a year as the Ford Fellow at the Japanese American Citizens League, a civil rights group, working with the anti-hate crime and youth programs. She also spent a couple of years as a freelance copywriter and now works as a senior associate editor for a cookbook/web publishing company.

Reenacting internet memes in real life is one of her favorite hobbies. Passionfruit Paperie is her sporadically-updated Etsy shop.

CLIPS

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:56:00 -0800

Educational publications
“Diagnosing the Asian American Eating Disorder,” appears in the 2012 edition of “Eating Disorders (Opposing Viewpoints)”, a Cengage textbook.

An Unnoticed Struggle: A Concise History of Asian American Civil Rights Issues
Curriculum supplement for the Japanese American Citizens League, 2008

Magazines/online publications
Confessions of a Sometimes-Booth Babe (NEW)
Jezebel.com, July 27, 2012

Shaun Evaristo: Choreographer to the stars
Mochi magazine, Fall 2010 issue

Diagnosing the Asian American eating disorder
Mochi magazine, Winter 2009-10 issue

From the Mochi test kitchen: Dorm-style Asian food
Mochi magazine, Winter 2009-10 issue

5 reasons to dump your high school boyfriend
College Candy, Dec. 14, 2009

Live like a rock star on a groupie’s budget
College Candy, Nov. 29, 2009

An interview with designer Estrella Tadeo
Hyphen magazine web exclusive, Nov. 13, 2009

Happily angry
Audrey magazine, April/May 2009 issue

The last laugh
Audrey magazine, Feb/Mar 2009 issue

Vienna’s calling
Mochi magazine, Winter 2009 -10 issue

Campaign director
Hyphen magazine, Spring 2008 issue

Once JA-owned farm now first on Washington’s historic barn register
Pacific Citizen newspaper, Nov. 16, 2007

Syracuse students’ fight for Asian American Studies an uphill one
Pacific Citizen newspaper, Nov. 2, 2007

“Shocked and disgusted”: Nurse files suit against H&M for racial slur
Pacific Citizen newspaper, Oct. 5, 2007

Teevee
CTA faces increasing money troubles
KBC-TV, June 2007 (story starts at 5:38)

Gas prices face summer surge
KBC-TV, May 2007 (story starts at 3:33)

Early bird politics
KBC-TV, Dec. 2006 (story starts at 0:54)

Other
“Impatience” (poetry)
Kartika Review, Issue 1, Winter 2007
“…Elaine Low’s ‘Impatience’ immediately became an editors’ favorite.”
- Sunny Woan, Managing Editor

An Interview With Designer Estrella Tadeo

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:55:00 -0800

Originally published as a Hyphen magazine web exclusive
Nov. 13, 2009

The menswear designer talks to us about her line, working at a co-op, and what a well-dressed Mr. Hyphen would wear.

To the male college graduates still shuffling to work in cargo shorts and polo shirts: Estrella Tadeo feels for you.

“There’s a huge gap from skater boy to professional,” says Tadeo. “When [skater boy] grows up, he can’t afford the YSL, but still wants to look cool.”

The menswear designer and co-founder of The Mission Statement, a co-op boutique, laments the lack of options available for guys. While she loves designing for both men and women, she sees a higher need for more menswear options, since women typically have more to choose from in a department store. For guys, there aren’t too many different looks to work with between Frat Boy and Wall Street.

“You don’t necessarily want to look stuffy but you want to look polished and hip,” she says. “Especially with younger men becoming professionals at a younger age, there’s a middle market there.”

Tadeo caters to that middle market with her tailored, structural designs. Asked if there are often clueless guys who walk into her store looking for fashion advice, she quickly responds, “Oh yeah. They need help.” The most important detail a guy should look out for? Fit.

“Fit is a huge thing for me,” she says. “Everything should have a good fit. I’m not so into the baggy fit for men. I like English tailoring — not tight but fitted. […] I strive for more timeless pieces, more than anything else. It’s not necessarily a trendy thing.”

While she sounds like a style pro, a career in fashion design wasn’t always the dream for Tadeo. Working in the garment industry since 1991, she learned the ropes early on, taking a full-time job just out of high school as a production assistant for a San Francisco line.

“As a young girl, I didn’t really want to be a fashion designer,” says Tadeo. “I fell into it in a way. I learned about garment construction on the job.”

Through the years she went on to work on a line with her sister, later moving to New York and then ultimately, back to San Francisco. While the fashion scene there isn’t as abundant as New York’s, Tadeo appreciates the camaraderie of San Francisco Bay Area designers, leading her to co-found a designer co-op a year and a half ago. The Mission Statement is now home to the work of eight designers, featuring a well-rounded array of clothes, silk screen designs, jewelry and cosmetics. Tadeo says she loves the variety and feeling of community in her little family of designers.

“I would say that the one great thing about the design community here is that it’s tightly knit and everybody wants to help everybody else out,” says Tadeo. “Everyone is just happy that there’s this camaraderie. I’m excited when I see younger [designers] just starting out, I’m excited to help them until they can get to the point where they can manage themselves.”

And what would Tadeo consider a fashionable Mr. Hyphen?

“Structure and tailoring are big factors. I love variables — a polished, well-fitted jacket, but paired with colors and accessories. My ideal person would have on a well-groomed, fitted [outfit],” she says, pausing to add, “I like scarves.”

—
Mr. Hyphen 2009 will take place on Saturday, November 14 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

Happily Angry

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:47:00 -0800

Originally published in Audrey magazine
Apr/May 2009

Angry Little Girls” creator Lela Lee releases of her fifth book and maybe - finally - a TV show

In a black and white three-panel drawing, a slightly bobble-headed girl and boy stare at each other. POW! A fist lands on the boy’s nose.

“Ouch! What’s that for?”

“That’s for all the stupid shit you’re going to do in the future,” the girl solemnly replies.

This is not a character from an earnest “Love Is…” comic strip in the Sunday paper. This is Kim, a quick-tempered Korean American with a foul mouth and Lela Lee’s original Angry Little Asian Girl.

First created by Lee almost 15 years ago when she was still a sophomore at UC-Berkeley, Kim and the rest of the Angry Little Girls represent those who are “disenchanted, crazy, fresh, gloomy and all around angry,” according to its website. The sharp and sassy comic strip has amassed a large following of teenage girls (and full-grown adults) over the years, and Lee’s appearances now garner crowds of dedicated fans who love her books, bags, and all things Angry.

But while dozens recently lined up to see her at a February book signing at UCLA for her latest book, “Angry Little Girls In Love,” Lee was once kicked off that same campus over 10 years ago for setting up shop at a book festival without permission and selling her then-unknown Angry Little Girls merchandise.

“It was mainly just a box of shirts out of the back of a truck,” says Lee, now a successful actor and cartoonist. “I was only two years out of college, spending money I didn’t have. I used my credit card to make 300 Angry Little Girl shirts and sold them for $20 [apiece] to my friends, like, ‘Will you please buy this? I don’t know why I made them.’” Hawking her wares at local festivals and fairs around the city, Lee was a mobile, one-woman street entrepreneur, equipped with a box of shirts and a lot of enthusiasm.

“I didn’t ask permission, I would just set up my table by the bathroom,” she says. That method earned her attention from a budding audience – and from security at a UCLA book festival, who asked her to leave. Chances are, neither she nor security thought she’d be back, years later, for a book signing as a bestselling cartoonist with an army of groupies who adore all of her Angry Little Girls.

The simplistic, yet biting and often hilarious illustrations were first created to vent her frustrations with the sexist and racist images she once encountered at an animation festival. “Five Angry Episodes” was the result, a short video comprised of a series of still drawings on butcher paper, starring Angry Little Asian Girl Kim and her equally disgruntled friends. Lee soon discovered that her work resonated with others more strongly than she could have ever imagined.

“It really struck a nerve with women who weren’t taught to be expressive, who were raised to just be polite and nice,” she says. After a screening at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles, Lee, waiting nervously outside in the lobby, was approached by at least 20 people who told her that she had captured “exactly what [they were] feeling.” Thus, an angry little universe was born.

Together, the short film and Angry Little Girls t-shirts eventually gave way to the eponymous website, to which a new strip is added every week. Featuring Angry Kim, Deborah the Disenchanted Princess, Wanda the Fresh Little Soul Sistah, Maria the Crazy Little Latina, and gloomy Xyla, the first Angry Little Girls book was published in 2005. With an initial run of 15,000, it sold out four times over in its first two months. Now on her fifth book, Lee still doesn’t cease to get excited about her characters’ new quips and adventures.

“When I was drawing [the latest book], I’d get this feeling of mischievous glee, and that’s when I know I’m doing it right,” she says. “Love is actually very flawed, and a lot of relationships are flawed, and I wanted to bring light to that.”

Next to the very first book in the series, Lee says “Angry Little Girls In Love” is her favorite one. Her audience seems to agree. The Angry Little Girls Facebook page, which boasts almost 2,000 fans, contains only raves about the newest addition. “I love Angry Little Girls!” comments one reader. “Reading through the valentine [sic] book reminded me of when my husband and I were dating! We were totally cracking up!”

Traveling across the country for about half a dozen speaking engagements and book signings a year, such positive feedback is encouraging to the cartoonist, whose work is sometimes isolating. In real life, Lee sounds surprisingly reserved. The now-married mother of a toddler is modest about her work and uncomfortable with interviews. (“I think they are like having a root canal,” she later admits.)

“I work by myself, so I don’t really interact with people,” she says. “When I meet people at a book signing and they love this one particular comic or their sister is just like this one character, it’s awesome. It’s awesome that they like my work.”

Lee says she taught herself how to draw comics by checking out books from the Beverly Hills library, setting aside her initial college creation for two years while she honed her cartooning skills. During her junior year at Berkeley, she took time off from college to try an acting career in Los Angeles. But after taking a few classes and getting her feet wet in a few plays and student films, Lee returned to college – and cartooning – with fresh, angry material. (She would later return to LA and the acting scene as a series regular on the short-lived Sci Fi series, “Tremors.”)

“Some people [in the entertainment industry] think you’re not smart, that maybe you’ll sleep with someone for a part,” she says. “It’s tough navigating the industry for a young woman.”

That sense of being an outsider – of feeling ostracized, dissatisfied, or taken advantage of – shows up often in her work.

“Boy will be boys,” says Bruce, a recurring character who is in love with Kim (the same one who received a punch in the mouth).

“I do not accept your male appeal to biology,” she replies.

“I’m an idiot?” he offers after a pause.

“That I accept.”

Growing up, she says it was hard to find comic strips that reflected her reality. “[Comic strip characters] were all either boys or animals,” says Lee, who was a fan of “Peanuts” and “Calvin and Hobbes.” Though “Cathy” was one of the few female comic strips available at the time, the white, middle-class thirty-something title character was too far out of demographic for young Lela. “I never really related to her because she was already older than me.”

The only Asian girl in the middle of an almost all-white neighborhood, Lee says she was taught to bottle up her emotions. While she was in junior high, her strict Korean parents advised her to give up art and focus on her academics (which she did, until college). And when faced with annoyance or aggravation, “I was always told to ‘Just be nice,’” she says.

“Asian women aren’t allowed to talk back, or be in any way strong, I guess. But your body, your life, your relationships suffer [because of it]. It’s like this secret monster that becomes bigger than it needs to be.”

That “secret monster” is what fueled much of her early work, and is what makes her so beloved to her fans today. While Angry Little Girls has yet to be picked up for syndication in newspapers (not for lack of trying), the shared sentiment of displacement connects Lee’s audience beyond just Asian American or female readers.

Once I was at a speaking engagement at a college in the Bay Area, and there was this African American student who came up to me and said he liked the one where Wanda asks Kim, ‘Are you Asian or are you American?’ and she answers, ‘Neither, I’m just angry,’” recounts Lee. “And I thought, ‘Wow, he feels the same way I feel about being in between cultures and fitting in.’”

“It’s gratifying to find an outlet,” she says. “Once an issue that is angering is pointed out, and pointed out with irony and humor, it diffuses it and makes the situation less ugly and less big. My artwork really healed my pain, and I like that it’s helping heal others. It’s OK to be angry, and hopefully you’ll laugh about it too.”

In one of the most touching instances of that Lee has encountered, she recalls Jana, a woman in her thirties, who attended an Angry Little Girls event, but left early, looking tired. Lee says she remembers Jana coming back in a wheelchair on the second day of her scheduled appearance just to say, “Your book really helped me to battle cancer, because it allowed me to be angry.”

With such a devoted fanbase, it is unsurprising that Lela Lee has been approached to turn Angry Little Girls into a television show, time and again. And, one may finally be in the works, but only after a series of initial setbacks that has made her cautious about promising any information to the public.

Warner Bros. first contacted Lee over 10 years ago with the notion of turning Angry Little Girls into an animated show – the only catch was that they wanted to “take out the Asian girl and make it live action.” Lee said no. Instead, she decided to pursue publishing books in an environment where “the public was supporting me all the way. If I change [the characters] for a show, it’s completely changing my DNA, changing my work.”

Then, in 2005, the Oxygen network approached Lee with the same idea. And while rumor had it that Jennifer Love Hewitt and MAD TV’s Alex Borstein were initially attached to the project – Lee says Borstein drafted a script for the show – the drawn-out development slowly sputtered to a halt a few years later, which Lee chalked up to bad timing (Oxygen was acquired by NBC in late 2007). Which is fine, she says.

“When I hear a no, it makes me work harder. Adversity actually works in my favor, because I’m like a dog with a bone.” And besides, the network “wanted to change what one of the characters looked like and I nearly had a heart attack.”

So with the word out now that FOX is in talks with Lee to develop an Angry Little Girls primetime animated series, she is – understandably – keeping mum.

“I don’t know, I don’t want to jinx it,” she says. “Will talking about it jinx it? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can talk about it.” What Lee will reveal is that she and “The Simpsons” showrunner Josh Weinstein have been working on it for two months, and she is “very optimistic.” A friend of hers, she calls the work relationship with Weinstein a “natural matchup.”

And unlike the other networks before it, FOX isn’t asking for any changes – so far. With five books and a healthy line of merchandise, this time Lee has brand loyalty backing her up.

“It feels like they appreciate [Angry Little Girls] for what it is,” she says. “They’re leaving the title, the characters as-is,” quickly adding, “But it’s always risky.” Whether the pilot presentation will lead to a primetime slot alongside “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons” is uncertain, but Lee – and her fans – are keeping their fingers crossed.

“I just don’t want to disappoint [my fans],” says Lee, who receives at least three emails a month asking about a possible show. “I’m really reluctant to say anything other than I’m hopeful.”

The Last Laugh

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:43:56 -0800

Originally published in Audrey magazine
Feb/Mar 2009

Projekt NewSpeak is blowing away the competition, whether at sketch comedy competitions or on YouTube. The funniest part about them is that rather on relying on Asian stereotypes and humor, they rely on something more profound - talent.

Enter Toyo, a spiky-haired teenager wearing a bright blue vest, red pants and aviator goggles. When he complains (“Waahhh!”), his shoulders bob up and down dramatically and two large blue streams of tears run down his face. When he asks a girl to the school dance, a flurry of little red hearts pops up above his head. With his exaggerated actions and tendency to flash the audience a peace sign, Toyo looks like an anime character.

That’s because he is an anime character – the personification of one, at least – in “Anime Club,” a hilarious sketch crafted by Projekt NewSpeak’s Sketch Comedy Show. Two ninjas in black accompany Toyo (played by cast member Kris Clemente), stealthily popping up oversized paper graphics behind the fervent anime lover’s head.

One of these ninjas is Eddie Kim, a comedian, Spoken Word artist and founder of Projekt NewSpeak. Over the past few years Kim has managed to bring this pet project to the forefront of the Asian American arts community, turning a one-time poetry slam into a multifaceted production company that is well on its way to the big time.

In late 2004, the UC Berkeley grad and a few friends – fellow artists, poets and performers – decided that they would put together a poetry and music showcase. Nothing big, just a modest show somewhere in Los Angeles where they and other artists could display their talents.

“We wanted to do something for the community that we don’t see too much of,” says Kim, a lanky California native with a toothy grin and quiet sense of determination.

By April of the following year, they made it happen, and with overwhelmingly positive results. The NewSpeak Slam ended up selling out, and the standing-room-only show forced the venue owner to tell Kim that the crowd was breaking fire hazard code and he would have to start turning people away. From there, Projekt NewSpeak took off and never quite stopped for breath.

Since the sold-out 2005 slam, Eddie Kim has recruited dozens more to contribute their time and energy to the cause, following up with more annual slams and creating additional branches of the group. The production company now includes the NewSpeak Slam, NewSpeak TV, and the award-winning flagship, The Sketch Comedy Show. A little bit like Russell Simmons’ Def Jam, which spurred poetry and comedy derivatives on HBO, Projekt NewSpeak aims to take one community’s arts scene and blast it into the mainstream.

“Russell Simmons did for black arts what not a lot of people have done: he took black arts into the mainstream media,” says Kim. “One of the things I really want to be able to do with this organization is take API arts and really get it into the mainstream, to make it American, because a lot of people don’t look at Asian Americans as American.”

Onstage, Kim is likable and energetic, veiling a surprisingly serious demeanor offstage, one that seems to be rooted in a deep belief in what he’s doing. Prior to founding Projekt NewSpeak, he worked for a series of Asian American nonprofits in LA, followed by four or five years in politics, working for various members of Congress and the Democratic National Committee until he “got sick and tired of government.” One gets the sense that Eddie Kim won’t work for something he doesn’t believe in.

But it is exceedingly clear that Kim believes in this organization. Projekt NewSpeak’s official mission, “to empower the Asian American community and impact the mainstream media,” is only a peek into his larger vision. “I want Projekt NewSpeak to become a machine where artists can come and create work and get paid,” he says. “I want it to become a viable outlet for people who want to make careers out of doing art.”

It’s an ambitious goal, and one still tucked away in the horizon. Sitting down with Projekt NewSpeak staffers and the Sketch Comedy Show cast on a unusually damp Monday night in LA, it soon becomes apparent that being part of this nearly-nonprofit – they just submitted their application to become a 501(c)(3) – is no one’s full-time career.

When asked what their day jobs are, “crackwhore” is volunteered, and the whole room bursts into laughter as members of the cast reluctantly offer up occupational titles in a way that makes it clear this is their first love. They are performers, regardless of where they get their income, and it almost seems inappropriate to label them otherwise.

What else would you call cast member Surina Jindal, a pre-med college grad from North Carolina who refused to take the MCAT, moved to LA, joined several East Indian dance troupes, spent time in New York working in advertising, moved back to LA, went to fashion school, and is now entering the teeth whitening business? A comedienne, that’s what. (“Your life is a sketch,” another cast mate tells Surina.)

Other members of Projekt NewSpeak’s Sketch Comedy Show include Earl Baylon, Jeremy Lalas, Susane Lee, Jason Owsley, Jeena Yi, and John Wrot, martial arts instructor and the “token white guy.” (Perhaps ironically, he is the only one in the group who knows martial arts.) They are a cheerful, chummy group, and silly banter comes easily to them. Though the ages range from early twenties to mid-thirties, and some members have been part of the group longer than others, it’d be easy to think they were all college buddies. Says Wrot, “The communication in the group is really solid.”

The 12-person Sketch Comedy Show is a mixed bag of personalities and senses of humor, a trait that contributes to the group’s broad appeal and is reflected in their creative process. “We all have a hand in it, and we all wear many hats,” says SCS member Kris Clemente (of Toyo fame). “We’re all writers here. When we finally get our finished product on stage, it’s not just one person’s own thing, it’s all of ours.”

“We have writers, but we all write; we have a director, but we all direct; we have volunteers, but we all show up early to help set up the place,” adds Davis Choh. One of the few members of Sketch Comedy Show over 30, Choh is an improv veteran who has performed in over 500 shows with various comedy groups over the years. Most of the SCS cast is young, still dipping their toes into the possibility of maintaining a serious career in the entertainment industry, and there’s a reason for that.

“They were trying to find people without a lot of experience, without a lot of ego,” says Choh of the initial auditions. ”And I think part of that ignorance has [contributed to] the bliss of making this so successful, because they don’t know any better – when to stop or how big a theatre is supposed to be – and it’s pretty amazing, what’s happened because of that. They [just] have a goal and they want to reach it. They don’t know how tough it is out there.”

And that blind determination is what led them to victory – twice – first at the iOWest Sketch Match, and again two weeks later at the Third Annual International Sketch Comedy Competition held at the Laugh Factory. Formulating new sketches just days before each competition and beating out dozens of other improv groups, the Projekt NewSpeak crew found themselves 2-0 this year after the only two competitions they’ve ever participated in.

“What’s really impressive about the organization are the people involved,” says Justin Quizon, a more recent addition and the only one who works offstage as a writer. “When I look around at the people involved, how many of them are passionate about what they’re doing – it’s very rare for people to stick around and be committed.”

Along with Sketch Comedy Show Director Brian Corpuz, Quizon is the only offstage of the sketch group whose sole function is to write, but he is hardly the only Projekt NewSpeak member who works behind-the-scenes. Ten other staffers volunteer their time as marketing and advertising coordinators, talent coordinators and producers, working to usher in press and recruit new fans.

“If you look at our audience, the demographics have expanded, and at our last show it was pretty multiethnic,” says Jessica Ku, director of community outreach. “The fact that we’re able to evolve like that in a year and a half is a testament to the type of comedy that we’re able to perform.”

Despite instant classics like “Anime Club,” exceedingly few of the group’s sketches are Asian-centric. Some sketches, like “Early 80s Opera,” entail musical tributes to “Thundercats” and “Transformers,” while others enact the disaster of dating someone who’s a just a bit too obsessive about his Disney collection.

Their brand of comedy has not gone unnoticed by their peers. NewSpeak TV, the arm of Projekt NewSpeak directed by Brian Corpuz and Eddie Kim, is an assorted series of short comedic clips and convention coverage that has garnered hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube. (Their segments covering Comic Con, Anime Expo and Power MorphiCon – a Power Rangers convention – have created an international fan base that carries spirited debates in the comments section of their uploaded videos.)

NewSpeak TV has even collaborated with other familiar faces in the Asian American arts community, like Dante Basco (“Hook,” “The Debut”), Roger Fan (“Finishing the Game”) and Karin Anna Cheung (“Better Luck Tomorrow”). All three make cameos in the group’s latest clip, “Two Robbers,” in which two inept crooks, played by Kim and Davis Choh, attempt to break into random houses and get starstruck (and beaten up) each time. Kim wrote the script and approached its various guest stars to be in the film.

“Talking to Eddie, it was really refreshing to meet people who are so excited to be doing what they do. They’re so passionate about it, and they’re really funny guys,” says Cheung. In the clip, her character is the middle of afternoon tea with her stuffed animals when robbers break into her house, and she sets her ferocious teddies loose on the goons. “There’s a huge amount of outtakes with me just cracking up.”

Projekt NewSpeak’s audience is growing with every new show and YouTube video, steadily forging their way into the mainstream. Their comedy segments have even attracted the attention of “Heroes” co-star James Kyson Lee, who has hinted at a collaboration effort with NewSpeak TV.

“I think their sketches and songs are hilarious,” says Lee. “Eddie and I are talking about doing a web series featuring two journeyman from a very unexpected background… I can’t reveal any more for now, but keep your eyes open.” (Think Amish Asians.)

Following the win at the International Sketchy Comedy Competition, the group was given the chance to pitch to mainstream sketch show MAD TV, hopeful that perhaps it was looking to cast new members after the departure of MAD TV veteran Bobby Lee. But the show was abruptly canceled, and they can only speculate as to what will happen with their submission. Still, it isn’t a damper on their win, and they remain hopeful and determined to break into the mainstream media.

“Every other career seems to have a path, whether it’s doctor, lawyer, engineer. I don’t think there’s a path for arts and entertainment, and really more so for API artists,” says Kim. “But I hope that years to come, Projekt NewSpeak becomes a vehicle that paves a path, and the more people that join this effort can forge this path together.” And the group is well on its way. In 2009, Kim plans to create a film department, send the group on a collegiate tour, and organize the first annual Projekt NewSpeak gala.

“With the amount of passion they have, you can’t help but be engaged,” says “Two Robbers” co-star Cheung. “They have so much positive energy. I think this will be a really good year for them.”

Vienna's Calling

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:39:46 -0800

Originally published in Mochi magazine
Winter 2009

From software engineer to singer/songwriter, Vienna Teng is right where she wants to be

Even though singer-songwriter Vienna Teng has been making music since she was five, it was only a couple of years ago that the sultry songstress was a software engineer working a nine-to-five in a cubicle by day and uploading her acoustic mp3s to the web by night.

Classically trained in piano and composing original pieces since she was six, Vienna (born Cynthia Yih Shih) put her musical aspirations on hold while she attended college. At Stanford University, Vienna was originally on the pre-med track, but later switched to pursue computer science because she considered a career in music impractical.

Three albums and several tours later, Vienna, presently 29 and a veteran of the indie music scene, can now safely acknowledge that her talent and creativity trumped practicality. But like many other Asian American artists, she initially wavered between the seemingly tethered life of socially acceptable career paths and the growing tendrils of her own creativity.

“My dad was the one who encouraged me [to pursue computer science in college],” said Vienna, “but my parents were surprised that I chose it. They thought I’d go into history or English or something.” She chose computer science precisely because it was a field that she could pursue, but also leave at any time.

“I knew all along it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” said Vienna. “I thought maybe I had a real shot at doing music.” Vienna describes her sound as “chamber folk,” which is “anchored in the pop world and the ‘70s music” that she listened to as a child.

She joined an A-Cappella group at Stanford, composing original music during her free moments away from classes and exams. Continuing to straddle her creative and professional ambitions after graduation, Vienna took on a job as a software engineer at Cisco Systems, creating and playing music whenever she could in her downtime.

“I was working during the day in a cubicle, doing open mics at night, and putting my mp3s on the web,” she says. “Like a lot of people, I worked my day job until I got a break.” That break came along in 2002 when Virt Records, an independent record label based in Seattle, approached the sultry-voiced musician to join the label and go on tour. Having spent two years as a software engineer, she decided it was finally time to pursue her dream full-time.

Since then, Vienna has never looked back, and her family has been more than supportive.

Although her parents worry about her well-being as an independent musician living in New York City, Vienna said, “My parents were just sort of resigned to the fact, like, ‘We kind of saw that one coming, and we know that you’re happy, so that’s the important thing,’” As a female artiste and a minority, being a musician can sometimes come with added obstacles. However, in Vienna’s case, she says that has never been a problem.

Describing the mainstream response to her music as “overwhelmingly positive,” she said being Asian American “has never ever been a liability.”

“I was surprised because there’s nothing particularly Asian American about my music,” she said. “I don’t talk about Asian American issues or cultural heritage, but mainstream readiness to see minorities is here. And within the Asian American community there are enough pioneers for it to be legitimate to go into the arts. It’s something that has got enough visibility where you can tell your parents about it.”

Having completed her eco-friendly Green Caravan Tour last April, Vienna is currently working on her fourth album with co-producer and percussionist Alex Wong.

Tracks on this new album will push the envelope and vary more than her jazzy 2006 album, Dreaming Through The Noise, though it will include the usual classical and chamber influences. It is set to be released in early 2009 by Zoë/Rounder Records, after which, who knows? Vienna might consider going back to academic grind after all, especially after her efforts on her 2007 tour.

“[The tour] wasn’t just about music and playing shows, but getting involved in the community,” she said of the Green Caravan Tour, during which she and her bandmates volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and sold organic products such as organic cotton totes and t-shirts, and other products made of recycled material.

“I’m hoping to go back to school and study sustainable development and environmentally friendly solutions,” said Vienna. After the promotional cycle for the upcoming album, she is interested in possibly returning to her alma mater in California for business school and focusing on social entrepreneurship.

This is likely relieving news for her grandmother. “[She] worries about me a lot, since I work in an uncertain field,” said Vienna. “It’s not something her generation considers a real career.”

Vienna is currently working on a track called “Grandmother Song.”

“My grandmother tells me to go to grad school and find a man. At first I sort of rolled my eyes, but then I realized where she was coming from,” she said. “So I turned it into a song. I hope she doesn’t kill me.”

Campaign Director

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:27:52 -0800

Originally published in Hyphen magazine
Spring 2008

Somewhere between attending the Los Angeles premiere of his latest film, Tre, and its opening a week later in Chicago, filmmaker Eric Byler managed to fit it in hours of poll watching, cold calling voters and Super Tuesday campaigning for Barack Obama.

Byler’s been scuttling from city to city to promote his new film and his politics, two passions that might not seem to have much in common, but stand for something that the 36-year-old filmmaker-turned-activist strongly believes in: fair representation.

“I consider my political activism an extension of my narrative work,” says Byler in a phone interview. “In cinema, as in politics, if you haven’t been getting the representation that you feel you deserve, it’s incumbent upon you to develop the tools to take action.”

And with Tre, the semi sequel to his breakout film, Charlotte Sometimes, he does just that. Featuring two hapa characters, Tre (Daniel Cariaga) and Kakela (Kimberly-Rose Wolter), as the leads in a romantic drama, Byler successfully manages to center the story on two mixed-race Asian American characters without brandishing ethnicity.

“In my movies, people approach their ethnicity the way they approach it in real life,” says Byler, who identifies as hapa (his mother is Chinese American mother and his father is white). “These are real people who happen to be ethnic—the word ethnic is never mentioned in Tre—but if you’re hapa and watching this movie there is some truth to the sort of indescribable curiosity that the two hapa characters have about one another.”

While Byler’s narrative films tend to focus on the micro, examining and reexamining the nuances of human relationships, his current crop of work has turned toward the macro, encouraging a broader sort of introspection about the human condition.

Over the past year, he has become deeply involved in campaigning for Obama. Byer has created video clips featuring prominent members of the Asian American community, such as actress Kelly Hu and Survivor winner Yul Kwon, voicing their support for the Democratic presidential candidate.

“In both cases—political activism and filmmaking—what motivates me and many people in the Asian American arts community is that we’re unhappy with the sort of representation we’re getting,” Byler says.

While CNN broadcast a segment in February that painted Asian American voters as racist and politically ignorant, Byler’s clips feature more than a few Asian Americans who have articulate, well-formed opinions.

Along with fellow filmmakers and activists Annabel Park and Jeff Mann, Byler has also embarked on a new project, 9500 Liberty, an “interactive documentary” posted on YouTube that allows viewers to comment and respond to their work. The project focuses on the heated debate over immigration in Prince William County, VA, where Byler grew up. The series explores the angry reactions of many longtime residents to a recent influx of Latino immigrants.

“A lot of families are dealing with these changes and are having trouble adjusting,” says Park, who conceived the idea for 9500 Liberty with Byler in August. “I don’t think people are as anti-immigrant as much as they are anti-change.”

9500 Liberty has been viewed more than 50,000 times, attracted media coverage from mainstream outlets like The Washington Post, France’s Le Monde and Japan’s NHK, and a few death threats.

Park and Byler, who’ve been dating since late 2006, are equally passionate about educating the public about this country’s immigration issues. The pair has worked on a variety of other efforts together, starting with the Real Virginians for Webb campaign, which Park says, “was really our first date. We had such an amazing adventure during the campaign that we decided to just continue the date and it continues to be an adventure.”

This swirl of activism and filmmaking has Byler dashing all over the country, and it’s easy to see why he finds himself spread a little thin these days.

“Sometimes I wish I could go back to just being an artist,” said Byler, who laments that working on post-production for Tre has taken time away from his political activism. “But once you’ve experienced the sense of empowerment knowing that your voice alone can make such a big difference, I don’t think I can go back to just being an artist.”

Tre comes out on DVD May 6. To view more of Byler and Park’s documentary work, visit http://www.youtube.com/unitedforobama and http://www.youtube.com/9500Liberty.

Once JA-Owned Farm Now First on Washington's Historic Barn Register

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:24:14 -0800

Originally published in the Pacific Citizen newspaper
Nov. 16, 2007

A farm once owned by Japanese Americans will now be one of the first to be placed on the Washington state Heritage Barn Register, preserving the memory of a once-beautiful barn and recalling an uglier era when the law prohibited many Asian Pacific Americans from owning land.

The Nakashima farm, which at one point spanned over 1,000 acres and was the first to have registered Guernsey cattle, served as home to Kamezo and Miye Nakashima and their family for decades before it was forcibly taken from them after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

While they had lived and worked on the farm for decades, the Nakashimas only owned the farm for five years when its previous owners transferred the deed to 24-year old Takeo Nakashima, their son and an American citizen. Discriminatory land laws of the time prevented non-citizens from owning land.

The family then had to sell the farm in 1941 for only $10 an acre, far below market value, before complying with the World War II evacuation order, according to Tracy Tallman, vice chairwoman of the Snohomish County Historic Preservation Commission.

“The Nakashimas would still be living here if they weren’t forced out. I think people need higher awareness of that,” said Tallman, who also noted that there weren’t many farmers in the county, let alone JA farmers.

Now the only farm in Washington’s Snohomish County to have ever been owned by APAs will be commemorated for its historic legacy and hopefully, restored to its former prime.

“It was a beautiful barn at one time. But now there’s canary grass that’s overrun the place, and the farm’s been neglected,” said Loren Kraetz, a farmer in Arlington about eight miles south of the former Nakashima property, and a member of the County Historic Commission. Like Tallman, he also believes it’s important for people to be aware of the turbulent history behind the barn.

JACL PNW Director Karen Yoshitomi agrees, “Time may ease the sting of discrimination, but it should not erase the lessons that can be learned from the past.” While some of the Nakashima descendants are reportedly indifferent to the project, locals like Kraetz want to see the barn rebuilt.

The barn, built around 1910, needs cosmetic restoration, according to Kraetz. Snohomish County purchased over 80 acres of the land over a decade ago and is currently in talks to make it over as a park trailhead. Old railroad tracks that go through the Nakashima farm could serve as part of the trail, and the barn itself would need cleaning and revamping.

Kraetz would like to see the land renamed Nakashima Park, in honor of the family.

Syracuse Students’ Fight For Asian American Studies An Uphill One

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:21:01 -0800

Originally published in the Pacific Citizen newspaper
Nov. 2, 2007

Ellee Kim, a senior at Syracuse University, grew up in a neighborhood full of “Jewish people and Caucasians.” While Kim is able to converse fluently in Korean and English, the 21-year old Korean American “always felt that there was something lagging” in her sense of cultural and socio-political awareness, and eagerly hoped to fill that void in college.

“In high school, you never learn enough about [Asian American topics]. I figured in college you could learn more,” said the Long Island native. But once she got to Syracuse, she soon learned there were no Asian studies or Asian American studies programs. So last month, she went to the arts and sciences college in a quest for answers.

Kim is not the first to ask why, at a college where AAs constitute the largest minority (6.8 percent of the undergraduate population), there is an African American studies program and an LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) studies program but nothing geared toward the more than 800 AA students at Syracuse.

“On campus, I see a great need for other people to see the struggle my parents and my ancestors went through,” said Kim. “A lot of people see Asian [culture] only as pop culture. They think Asia is a fun place but they don’t really understand it. It’s really frustrating.”

But when Kim took her case to the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Susan Wadley, she didn’t feel any less frustrated.

“[Wadley] didn’t seem too supportive,” she said, describing the dean as “intimidating and discouraging” when it came to pursuing any sort of AAS programming. Kim is not alone in her sentiment.

In May 2006, a year and a half before Kim went to find answers at the College of Arts and Sciences, a group of about a dozen students set about organizing a campaign to bring a program resembling AA studies to Syracuse. The group, then headed by student Jonathan Han, aimed to eliminate the discontinuity of the previous student effort.

There had been a disjointed though ongoing campaign for AAS programming since the late 1990s, after the infamous “Denny’s incident” in which six AA students and one Caucasian student were attacked in a Denny’s parking lot in Syracuse, NY after being turned away from service at the restaurant. So Han and his fellow students tried to drive through an AAS program, talking to numerous faculty, students, and Multicultural Student Affairs personnel, and brought their case to the college.

But Han, now an alumnus working in the campus’ ministry who also continues to write for the college newspaper, said that despite the group having presented a proposal, student petition, and supporting statements signed by faculty willing to teach courses, Dean Wadley “was not receptive” to the students’ efforts, even though they had presented a proposal for “Transnational Asian Studies,” a diluted version of what students wanted, which merged both Asian and AA studies in an attempt to satisfy both parties.

He blames the rejection, in part, on the “paradox of being Asian American.”

“People think ‘Are they a minority or not?’ It’s always been black or white,” said Han. “It blows my mind that [the administration] doesn’t see the need for Asian American studies. We say we want to be a cutting edge school but we don’t walk the walk.”

Dean Wadley says she has been “more than willing to talk to [students],” and that their effort in the spring of 2006 was “not a serious campaign. […] They came to see me once and then I never heard another word from them in over 15 months.” Students should have further consulted her and been more well-organized, she said, adding that in any case, the school does not currently have sufficient staff and faculty to carry such a program.

“Should we have Asian American studies? Certainly. But we don’t have the faculty for it,” said Wadley. “I can’t do anything for it if I have no staff or faculty.”

Han disagrees, pointing out that several faculty members had shown willingness to be involved in and teach possible AAS courses at Syracuse, and that the student effort was very well-organized and well-researched.

And there lies the grand discrepancy. The fight for programming, the attempt to show a need for Asian and AA Studies in colleges like Syracuse, denigrates at some point into a he said-she said dispute that only further serves to undermine any progress. And students like Kim and Han end up never being able to take a course in AA literature or race relations throughout their college careers.

One of the students from the May 2006 campaign, Carina Lui, is now a sixth-year dual degree candidate in her last few semesters at the university and has still never had the opportunity to take an AAS course. More people, she said, are beginning to notice the empty spot in ethnic programming.

“I’ve talked to many people in the past six years I’ve been here,” said Lui. “They also think there’s a void that needs to be filled.”

But until that void is filled, students will have to keep on plugging away. Han writes the occasional column lamenting the lack of AAS programming at Syracuse, hoping that his words will stir the AA student populace to action. For now, with many of his original group now either graduating seniors or alumni, hope is all he has left, but it is good enough.

“When you start giving up hope, that’s it,” said Han. “There’s always hope. The last thing we can give up is hope.”

"Shocked And Disgusted”: Nurse Files Suit Against H&M For Racial Slur

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:18:21 -0800

Originally published in the Pacific Citizen newspaper
Oct. 5, 2007

Frannie Richards stopped by the Michigan Avenue H&M on her lunch break hoping to walk out with a dress or a new suit. She never expected to emerge with a different kind of suit - a lawsuit.

The Filipino American nurse is filing a complaint against the corporate clothing behemoth for an alleged racial slur one of its employees made to her in mid-September at an H&M in downtown Chicago. According to Richards, she had just entered the store and was browsing the racks when an employee near her raised his hand and exclaimed loudly, “Mail order bride in the house!” before running over to a fellow employee and bursting into laughter.

“I was shocked and disgusted,” said the 33-year old retired U.S. Air Force reserve staff sergeant in an interview. In her complaint to the Chicago Commission of Human Relations, she stated: “I felt he was implying that I was a whore and couldn’t understand why he would say anything so derogatory.”

Richards then approached the employee, a Caucasian male in his late twenties or early thirties, and asked for a fitting room.

“Can you read that sign? It says ‘fitting room,’” he allegedly told her, muttering “Ching, chong, chang” as she walked away.

“I was dumbfounded,” said Richards, who was born and raised in Chicago. “When he first said it, I couldn’t believe it, but even when I went up to him, he wouldn’t stop. He just went on and on and on. […] I’m not naïve about racism, but for him to say it disgusts me. He didn’t understand how degrading it was.”

Since then, she has contacted the Better Business Bureau, the Chicago Commission of Human Relations, and the Asian American Institute for help. Numerous attempts to elicit a response from H&M management has yielded few results; Richards said she was bounced from manager to manager before receiving a call from H&M’s Midwest corporate manager, who informed Richards she was also of Asian descent and that the company does not condone the employee’s behavior. That did little to soothe Richards.

“I couldn’t sleep [that night]. I was crying.”

The incident follows close on the heels of the drowning death of Du Doan, a 62-year-old Vietnamese American fisherman who was pushed off a harbor into Chicago’s Lake Michigan only weeks earlier. Many local Asian Americans believe his death is tied to anti-Asian sentiment. The man being charged with Doan’s murder is a member of a skinhead group (though allegedly an “anti-racist skinhead group”) and, according to authorities, is prone to violent behavior.

Doan’s death has raised the profile of anti-Asian sentiment in Chicago, said Myron Dean Quon, Richard’s representing attorney and legal director of the Asian American Institute.

“There are a lot of anti-Asian incidents in Chicago but people don’t know what to do or just suck it up and move on. Ever since [the Doan murder] we’ve been getting reports of all sorts of incidents,” said Quon, asserting the belief that if Richards had been in an H&M in a different city, the scenario might have played out very differently.

“I have no doubt that if this happened in San Francisco or New York or even L.A., the response would be different. They might even get beaten up by their coworkers, there are so many Asian Americans [in those cities],” he added.

While Richards said that it is too late for an apology, she hopes that people will learn from this.

“I want people to know that there is no right place or right time to say any sort of racial comment, especially in a professional atmosphere,” she said. “If he came to my hospital and was treated like that by any of the doctors or nurses, we would be terminated.”

Richards is seeking compensation for emotional distress and legal fees.

Her attorney, Quon, hopes this will lead to better diversity training workshops.

“[Currently] they’re kind of pathetic, and people roll their eyes and laugh. They just don’t work,” he said. “We want people to realize the seriousness of slurs.”

At press time, H&M had not yet responded to Richard’s complaint and refused all media inquiries. The retailer has until Oct. 21 to file a formal response with the Chicago Commission of Human Relations.

And what if the clothing giant fails to respond by then?

“Then,” said Quon, “we go ahead and push.”