asian
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” Star Ke Huy Quan Recalls Losing Health Insurance, Searching For Roles Prior To Oscars Win
Ke Huy Quan is filled with enthusiasm and gratitude following his Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor! In the Academy Awards press room, the “Everything Everywhere All At Once” actor reflected on the ups and downs of Hollywood journey, including losing his health insurance during the pandemic and the hurdles he encountered looking for roles. “I would [call my agent] and say, ‘Hey, is there anything out there for me?’ And the answer would always be the same: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, there’s nothing out there, but I’ll continue to look.’ So hopefully, when I call my agent tomorrow, he’ll give me another answer!” he told reporters. The actor also spoke about getting support from his “Goonies” co-stars and from his “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” director Steven Spielberg.
Ke Huy Quan didn’t expect a Hollywood career when he was picked as a child to star as Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” But success, having peaked early, was short-lived. Now, after decades working behind the camera, Quan returned to the screen in the acclaimed “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” He talks with correspondent Tracy Smith about what it means to have won the role for which he’s received an Oscar nomination.
Groundbreaking Movie Star Anna May Wong To Be First Asian American Featured On US Currency
Early movie star Anna May Wong, who broke into Hollywood during the silent film era, will become the first Asian American to appear on US currency, a century after she landed her first leading role.
Wong’s image, with her trademark blunt bangs and pencil-thin eyebrows, will feature on the back of new quarters from Monday.
The design is the fifth to emerge from the American Women Quarters Program, which highlights pioneering women in their respective fields. The other four quarters, all put into production this year, feature poet and activist Maya Angelou; the first American woman in space, Sally Ride; Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller; and suffragist Nina Otero-Warren. The latter two were, along with Wong, selected with input from the public.
“These inspiring coin designs tell the stories of five extraordinary women whose contributions are indelibly etched in American culture,” the US Mint’s acting director, Alison Doone, said in a statement to CNN last year, when the list was revealed.
Considered the movie industry’s first Chinese American star, Wong overcame widespread discrimination to carve out a four-decade career in film, theater and radio. She acted alongside icons including Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Laurence Olivier and appeared on stage in London and New York.
Born in Los Angeles, she began acting at 14 and took a lead role in “The Toll of the Sea” three years later, in 1922. She went on to appear in dozens of movies but faced deeply entrenched racism in Hollywood, where she struggled to break from stereotypical roles.
She moved to Europe in the 1920s, but later returned to the US to make hits including “Shanghai Express,” the 1932 adventure-romance movie that gave Wong one of her best-known roles — it starred Dietrich as a notorious courtesan who takes a three-day rail journey through China during the Chinese Civil War and is held hostage on board, with Wong playing a fellow first-class passenger.
Throughout her life, Wong advocated for greater representation of Asian American actors in Hollywood. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the year before she died aged 56.
Source: CNN
Video Of TikToker Joel Hansen (Modelvsfood) Gagging In Asian Grocery Store, Saying It Has A ‘Pet Store’ Draws Backlash
A Canadian social media influencer faced fierce backlash over a racist video in which he joked that an Asian market has a “pet store” in the back.
The influencer ultimately apologized for his ignorance—but viewers aren’t buying it.
“Under his apology video, there are people saying ‘we’ forgive u. Bro, who’s we?!” one TikTok user commented.
Joel Hansen, known as @modelvsfood across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, set himself up for failure in May—Asian American-Pacific Islander Heritage Month—when he mocked the Asian store and its items in the TikTok video. The 3-minute video, which has been deleted, was captured by TikToker Michael or @chachamyeonmikal.
In the clip, which has a text banner reading “This food should be illegal,” Hansen can be seen standing outside the Asian supermarket T&T.
“If you have never been in an Asian grocery store, you’re about to be shocked!” he says.
The video then shows Hansen inside the store, where he smells durian—a fruit popular in Southeast Asia—and makes a disgusted face. Next, he questions a plucked chicken and why it was being sold with its feet still intact.
“They even have a pet store back here where you can grab whatever animals you want!” Hansen exclaims while holding a crab with tongs at the seafood counter.
At this point, Michael interrupts the video repost to make a statement about Hansen’s racist comments.
“I had to stop right at that comment about there being a pet store at the back of an Asian grocery store,” Michael says. “Like, you have to know how bad that sounds and how bad that looks.”
Then, Michael transitions back to Hansen’s TikTok footage, which includes visible hashtags like “food challenge,” “eww,” “gross,” “gross food,” “gross food challenge,” and “California food.”
“I know he leads a flavourless life,” someone commented under Michael’s repost of the video.
“Bro shocked by fresh seafood lmao,” another viewer posted.
In another video reposted by Michael, Hansen is still at the grocery store making jokes about the customers.
“We have customers in training,” Hansen says as an Asian child walks by with a kiddie cart.
“Omg,” a TikTok viewer commented under the video. “I used to watch him all the time on YouTube, but I literally stopped because any time he eats somewhere that has non American food—”
“The way he treats Asian people as props in his video to poke and make fun at,” another user said.
After the relentless criticism, Hansen issued a 6-minute apology on TikTok on May 20, titled “Sorry” with a frowning emoticon. The video is captioned, “No excuses. I am sorry. I cannot change the past, but I can change the future. I will do better. Thank you.”
“I’ll start by saying I truly regret what was released, how it was released, and I really do take responsibility, and I really apologize,” Hansen says. “The video has been removed, and I’m here again to verbalize and to ensure that nothing like this happens again. The video was absolutely clickbait-y, marketed, edited, and created for shock value. With my layers of privilege, I did not identify really with how this video was.”
Hansen implies that he was unaware of how the video was being edited and marketed, but that he still takes responsibility for its production. Then, Hansen tries to downplay his reactions to the supermarket.
“I never spoke the words ‘weird,’ ‘gross.’ I just kind of wanted to show items that you normally can’t acquire in a North American grocery store,” he says in the apology video. (For the record: T&T is the largest Asian grocery store chain in Canada with nearly 30 locations.)
Source: The Daily Beast
DJ Akademiks On Seeing Immigrants Outwork Black Americans In College
DJ Akademiks talked about his experience in college, and went on to say how he saw immigrants work harder as students in America. From there, he and Vlad talked about their beginnings, and also discussed how some people say college is a scam. Watch above.
Black Lives Matter NY Loses All Credibility After Restaurant Releases Footage
The owner of a popular Manhattan restaurant stands by his employee on Friday and blasted the three African-American women from Texas charged with attacking the restaurant’s hostess for demanding to see proof they were vaccinated against COVID-19.
The incident happened last Thursday when three African-American women from Texas decided to dine at Carmine’s, a popular Italian restaurant in Manhattan. All three women showed proof of vaccination—which is a New York City requirement now—and were allowed to enter the restaurant.
However, three male friends of the African-American women showed up a little later and were refused entry because they did not show proof of vaccination. The party as a whole was offered seats outside instead.
The women claim the 24-year-old Asian-American hostess who refused entry to the male party was being “rude” and said the “N-word” before lunging at them first.
A viral video shows the group of African-American women physically assaulting the Asian-American hostess while she’s screaming, “Oh my god, what the f**k!?”
49-year-old Sally Recehelle Lewis of Houston, 44-year-old Kaeita Nkeenge Rankin, and 21-year-old Tyonnie Keshay Rankin, both of Humble, Texas, were charged with assault and criminal mischief. The three women were released without bail soon after.
In response, Black Lives Matter New York uploaded an Instagram post stating they will protest Carmine’s on Monday, September 20, and falsely stated the hostess who started it all was “White.”
On Monday, over 30 members of Black Lives Matter gathered in front of Carmine’s and chanted “Cancel Carmine’s,” while demanding African-American customers to leave the restaurant.
“After she dropped the N-bomb, the three women did a double-take and followed her out the restaurant,” stated Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter New York.
Newsome and his cohorts demanded Carmine’s release security footage of the incident and claimed the restaurant was covering up the truth.
Carmine’s almost immediately released the footage to the local media, which clearly shows the three African-American women follow the Asian-American hostess outside and attack her without provocation.
Many witnesses state the women were bitter the other half of their party were not allowed to enter the restaurant and basically got angry they didn’t get what they wanted. No racial slur was ever heard leading up to the vicious attack or during it.
During Monday’s protest, members of Blacks Lives Matter can be heard screaming “We’ll teach you Whites and Asian people a lesson.”
Source: Asian Dawn
May Fiona On Incel Attacks And Fetishization Of Asian Women
Conversations In Context: Organizing – Hosted By Yoonj Kim
Faced with historic injustices that often spilled into violence, Asian-American students at UC Berkeley–buoyed by the support of other student groups–went on strike in May 1968, demanding more diverse curricular representation. Later, leaders like Grace Lee Boggs and Larry Itliong would force a greater reckoning with the country’s past in order to extract social, economic, and legal change for their communities. Join MTV News correspondent Yoonj Kim and National Museum of American History Curator Theodore S. Gonzalves as they pick out lessons for the equally fraught landscape we face today.
NBA Sixth Man Of The Year Jordan Clarkson Helps Restore Filipino Food Truck (World Famous Yum Yum Asian Food Truck) After Racist Vandalism
Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson helped restore a Filipino food truck that was vandalized last week with racist slurs and derogatory images.
According to Austin Facer of ABC 4, Clarkson was one of a number of people who joined IdentityGraphx and helped restore the World Famous Yum Yum Food Truck, which serves Asian fusion and Filipino food in northern Utah, after the vandalism.
Layton, Utah, Mayor Joy Petro and city council members were also involved in the restoration, and the food truck revealed its new paint job before its reopening at the Philippine Independence Day celebration on Saturday in Salt Lake City.
The owners of the truck thanked those involved in a Facebook post:
“It has been an emotional few days. The love and support that we got from all of you has been deeply heartfelt. My family can’t thank you guys enough. Special thanks to Utah Jazz’s Jordan Clarkson and Dan from Identity graphics for the new look. We want to thank everyone individually in a couple weeks when we have our LOVE celebration in the park and feed the community. Thanks to Mayor Joy Petro, Councilman Clint Morris, Councilman Zach Bloxham, Dustin, everyone in the neighborhood and all of you angels. Love prevails. We are going to have our grand reopening this Saturday at the Philippine independence day celebration in slc.”
On Wednesday, Layton Police announced they are still looking for those responsible for the vandalism and offered a $500 reward for information that leads to their arrest.
Source: Bleacher Report
Asian Americans: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO)
John Oliver discusses the large and diverse group of people who fall under the term “Asian American”, the history of the model minority stereotype, and why our conversations on the subject need to be better-informed.
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