Thursday, March 31, 2022

Asian American mothers struggling with multiple crises of pandemic, anti-Asian hate and caregiving




By Miliann Kang and C.N. Le
REPRINTED FROM THE CONVERSATION

In memory of the Atlanta massage spas shootings on March 16, 2021, that killed eight people, including six Asian women, communities around the country gathered a year later to mourn and demand responses to violence against Asian Americans, especially women who work in service industries.

In addition to being exposed to risks at their workplaces, Asian American women who care for children and elders are especially vulnerable to anti-Asian violence. As sociologists and scholars of gender, race, immigration and Asian American studies, we focus on the particular challenges facing Asian American mothers.

Though they face challenges similar to those faced by other mothers confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian American women have the added burden of being seen as the cause of the virus and being disproportionately targeted by hostility and violence that such misconceptions bring on.

Spike in assaults

From March 2020 to December 2021, StopAAPIHate, a joint project between the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University and two Asian American community organizations, collected reports of almost 11,000 incidents in the U.S. of anti-Asian hate, ranging from spitting to verbal abuse to physical attacks. Women reported 62% of these incidents.

In a separate survey of 2,414 female Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders conducted in January and February 2022 by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, a national organization founded in 1998 to advocate for women and girls in that community, results show that 74% of respondents reported personally experiencing racism, discrimination or both in the prior 12 months.

The spike in violence has been reflected in news headlines that have appeared since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic on March 11, 2020.

National Public Radio proclaimed, “There’s been an alarming spike in violence against women of Asian descent in the U.S.” NBC also reported, “‘Nowhere is safe’: Asian women reflect on brutal New York City killings.”

Over the same time period, other news headlines reflected the toll the pandemic took on mothers. A New York Times headline, for instance, read “The Primal Scream: America’s Mothers Are in Crisis.” Another in USA Today read “We sacrificed working moms to survive the pandemic.”

For Asian American mothers, what appear to be distinct headlines are inextricably connected in daily decisions on whether to send children to school, accompany parents on the subway, go to work or simply leave the house.

Heightened risks

“There’s just a real sense of fear,” said Jeanie Tung, director of business development and workforce partnerships at Henry Street Settlement. The organization, located near New York City’s Chinatown, serves Manhattan’s Lower East Side residents and other New Yorkers through social services, arts and health care programs.

During an interview, Tung said she has heard from Asian American mothers that their concerns go beyond the lack of child care. “It’s more like, ‘I don’t want to work because I don’t want to risk my life,’” said Tung.

The shootings in Atlanta-area massage spas exposed the heightened vulnerabilities of Asian American women who work in high-contact service industries, such as nail salons, restaurants, delivery, health care, caregiving, hospitality and, especially, massage and sex work.

Yin Q is an organizer for Red Canary Song, a coalition of Asian massage and sex workers in the U.S., with programs also in Toronto, Paris and Hong Kong. “If you look at the rise in violence across the board,” she said in an interview, “then it’s magnified for massage and sex workers. And then you add to that, being a mother and a caregiver.”

She explained that social stigma and criminalization of their work increase their risks of violence. Their work also prevents them from being seen as devoted mothers and responsible caregivers.

John Chin, professor of urban planning at Hunter College, co-authored an National Institutes of Health-funded study that interviewed over 100 Korean and Chinese women working in illicit massage parlors.

“Can we as a community accept that a person might be both a sex worker and a loving mother dedicated to raising her children?” he asked.

Various initiatives have been proposed to address how motherhood negatively impacts earnings, known as the motherhood penalty, and how this penalty has been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Measures such as flexibility to work from home, child care subsidies, paid family leave and other programs in the Biden administration’s American Families Plan are important.


Unique challenges

On top of negotiating vaccines, mask mandates, online and in-person learning while trying to sustain their own careers and mental health, Asian American mothers are in a state of hypervigilance against racist attacks.

Immediate needs include increased personal safety. Measures such as providing alarms, rides and hotlines, as well as offering classes in self-defense and bystander training, have proved effective.

A report by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum goes even further. “The State of Safety for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women in the U.S” urged elected officials to spend more money on community-based organizations that offer language-accessible services to help Asian Americans find employment, housing and health care.

CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities has been working since 1986 to address various forms of anti-Asian violence – from street assaults to police brutality to landlord harassment and housing displacement. Its main approach is developing leadership within Asian immigrant communities, including among tenants, workers and youths.

Queer and trans Asian American mothers, and those raising children who identify as queer and trans, are demanding visibility and responses to the particular challenges they face, including higher risk for intimate partner and family violence.

Asian Americans are a diverse group, as are Asian American mothers. While some Asian American groups have called for more policing, others disagree and call for community-based approaches to increase safety.

Julie Won, one of the first Korean Americans to serve on the New York City Council, told The New York Times in March 2022 that tougher policing is not the answer and more attention needs to be paid to “prevention and long-term solutions to what leads to these violent crimes.”
Education remains key

Asian American studies scholars have sought to teach the history of anti-Asian racism and specifically the roots of racialized sexualization of Asian American women.

But backlash against teaching critical race theory underscores the need to expand curriculum on Asian American history and contemporary issues facing Asian Americans beyond the university to K-12 public education. Such initiatives have been proposed in several U.S. states and have become law in Illinois and New Jersey.

Efforts to support and protect Asian Americans, particularly mothers, require approaches that both respond to the rise in anti-Asian violence at this very troubling moment and recognize the long gendered and racial histories of anti-Asian exclusion.


About the authors:


Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Filipina American picked for high-ranking White House post

SCREEN CAPTURE / C-SPAN
Nani Coloretti during the Senate's confirmation hearing.

The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday, 57-41, to confirm Nani Coloretti to serve in the White House where she will serve as the deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget.

Coloretti will be the highest-ranking Filipino American in the Biden administration, says Hawaii's US Sen. Brian Schatz.

“This is a proud moment for Hawaii,” said Schatz in a press release. “Nani will bring strong leadership experience and the ability to inspire the next generation of Filipino American leaders in Hawai‘i and across the country. I am proud to call Nani a friend, and I look forward to continuing to work with her in her new role at OMB.”


"As the agency that oversees the implementation of the funding to execute the President’s agenda, OMB is one of the most consequential offices in the Federal government," says Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Prior to her selection as deputy director of OMB, she was a Senior Vice President at the Urban Institute, an independent policy research organization and think tank dedicated to using evidence, insight, and analysis to advance upward mobility, equity, and shared prosperity all Americans.

Coloretti’s federal government service includes deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Assistant Secretary for Management and Acting CFO of U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Acting COO of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Before joining the Obama Administration in 2009, she served as Policy and Budget Director for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. 

Before joining the federal government, her experience includes work in San Francisco to improve the lives of children, youth, and families; program examiner and Presidential Management Fellow in the Office of Management and Budget and work on the State of Hawaii budget. 

She was born and raised in Hawaii. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and communications from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1994.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't miss additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective by following @DioknoEd on Twitter.




Chicago swears in first Chinese American woman onto the City Council

CITY OF CHICAGO
Nicole Lee, center, was sworn into the Chicago City Council.

It is not often that the 45-member Chicago City Council agree on something but on Monday, they unanimously voted to seat Nicole Lee, the first Asian American woman to serve on Chicago's governing body. 

Lee will serve as the alderman for the city's 11th Ward, which is home to Chicago's Chinatown.

“I’ve spent most of my 47 years as a resident in Chinatown,” Lee told reporters after Monday’s confirmation. “I have deep roots in the community, I’m raising my two teenage sons and now they represent the 4th generation of Lee’s that live in the building my grandparents bought.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot recommended the historic appointment after a selection committee picked her out of 29 candidates, which included several AAPI candidates.

Lee replaces former Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, who was forced to resign after being convicted of income tax fraud and lying to federal regulators.


Lee, who holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago, has worked at United Airlines for the past 15 years, spending the last three as director of social impact and community engagement. 

She has also served as president of the Chicago chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans, vice president of the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, cofounder and co-chair of the Asian Giving Circle, leader of Haines Elementary Local School Council, and member of the UIC Asian American Advisory Council.

Lee told alderpeople her “top priority” would be delivering essential constituent services to 11th Ward residents while staying focused on community safety, but has thus far not weighed in on where she stands on political issues facing the city.

Her father is Gene Lee, was a top mayoral aide of Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is the uncle of the alderman replaced by Nicole Lee.

Gene Lee was convicted in 2014 for embezzlement, stealing from charities. The crime did not involve his duties as Daley’s deputy chief of staff.

Nicole Lee’s father was also known as the “Mayor of Chinatown.” During his sentencing dozens of neighborhood supporters erupted into cheers when he avoided a prison sentence.

Her father's questionable past history apparently did not affect Lightfoot's final decision to appoint her. "She  is her own person," Lightfoot said of Nicole Lee.

Lee taking over a seat held by Daley Thompson is also seen as a change in Chicago's changing demographics.

The 11th Ward used to be a majority Irish American and served as the power base for the Daley's long reign in Chicago politics.

Lee's ascension reflects the fast growing Asian American population of the city. Chinatown is still the cultural hub of the Chicago's AAPI community.  

In Chicago, the Asian American population grew by 31%, an increase of about 45,000, according to the 2020 Census.

Lee will hold the 11th Ward seat until the city elections next year. She has not announced whether she will be running for the post.

“I will be the first ever woman and Chinese American to serve as the 11th Ward alderman,” Lee said to cheers at an introductory press conference last week in Bridgeport. “I cannot be more proud to represent the people that came before me, the communities that raised me and the neighborhoods that my boys are growing up in today.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't miss additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective by following @DioknoEd on Twitter.


Tuesday, March 29, 2022

San Diego State University will establish Asian American Studies Department

SDSU
SDSU students on campus.


With AAPI students making up 13% of the 31,000 students at San Diego State University, the school is playing catchup in creating an Asian American Studies Department.

The California state university (CSU) is committed to filling what has been a "glaring gap in the inclusiveness of ethnic studies," according to Associate Professor and Deaprtment Chair of Sociology, Minjeong Kim.

Currently, CSUSD has only three Asian American courses, says Kim.

The Asian American Studies department would offer majors and new curricula covering more than an intro to Asian American history.

Proposing new courses will be crucial to building the department. A search for faculty has already been launched and is in its final selection stage.

The two newly hired professors will be responsible for building the Asian American Studies department, reported The Daily Aztec.

“I’m hoping that all our students will have the opportunity to really dig deep into knowing APIDA history,” said Dr. Virginia Loh-Hagan, member of the faculty search committee. “I think that’s important because I think that ignorance is one of the root causes of anti-Asian hate. The more visibility and more understanding we have of people, the less likely we are going to suffer from discrimination and hate.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't miss additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.


Hollywood finally shines spotlight on Anna May Wong

ANNA MAY WONG

It is appropriate that it took women of Asian descent to put a spotlight on the silver screen’s first Chinese American star, Anna May Wong.

Actress Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians, The Eternals) and producer Nina Yang Bongiovi (Sorry to Bother You, Fruitvale Station) are teaming up to develop a film about Anna May Wong, the Hollywood's first Asian American movie star, who fought a lonely battle against the movie industry's penchant for casting AAPI actresses to stereotypical roles. 

Chan will play the title role of the Los Angeles-born pioneer actress who started in silent films and transitioned to speaking roles.

Golden Age icon whose career brought her international recognition even as she continued to face opportunity limitations in the industry and other forms of prejudice and discrimination.

Chan, one of the busiest movie actresses and outspoken against the epidemic of anti-Asian hate in Great Britain and the U.S., will portray the Hollywood legend and also executive produce. 

Yang Bongiovi, who has a reputation of backing productions risk-adverse Hollywood wouldn't touch, will produce alongside Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. 

Gemma Chan's "look" at New York City's Met Gala was a tribute to Anna May Wong..


Wong's role in Hollywood is getting more attention in the last few years as the topic of diversity and inclusion in the movie industry has become a hot topic in the AAPI community. 

Her role in the early years of Hollywood was partially told in Netflix's  2020 limited series Hollywood. This year, Wong's image was used on a U.S. quarter, the first Asian American to be depicted on U.S. currency.

Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist wrote about Wong in her book "Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism,"  She found it remarkable that Wong spoke out in interviews on the prejudices she endured, despite there being little history for her to pull from.

“It was different because there wasn’t a lot of awareness what Asian American is and means, and she actually did speak out a lot about that,” Yuen explained to CAAM. 

“I had the benefit of all the people that came before me, all the historians, all the scholars, all the activists,” she added. “For her, she was alive during a time when there wasn’t that. She couldn’t take a course in Asian American studies.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't miss additional commentary and news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Monday, March 28, 2022

Two foreign films by Asians win Oscars

The director and some of the cast of 'Drive My Car,' traveled to L.A. for the Oscars.

Two films by Asian moviemakers won the coveted Oscars last night, the highest award in the movie industry.

The Oscar for Best Foreign Feature went to the Japanese production, Drive My Car, which was also nominated for Best Picture.
Adapted from the Haruki Murakami short story of the same name and directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the film follows grieving theater director Yusuke Kafuku (played by Hidetoshi Nishijima)  who is mounting a stage production of Uncle Vanya while grieving the death of his wife. As he is driven to work, he uses the ride to practice his lines and developes a connection with his personal driver.

Highly praised by film critics, the 3-hour feature previously won awards at the Golden Globes and the Cannes Film Festival.

The film's Oscar win was one of the few victories by an Asian or Asian American project.
RELATED: Complete list of Oscar winners.

Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia celebrated their Oscar wins for 'The Long Goodbu=ye.'

Pakistani Brit Riz Ahmed won an Oscar for his live short film, The Long Goodbye.

The 12-minute film paints an unsettling and unfortunately believable picture of a dystopian future, where a British South Asian family are violently rounded-up by a gun-toting gang, Ahmed describes the short as a piece about “being broken up with by the country they live in.”


“In such divided times, we believe that the role of story is to remind us there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. There’s just ‘us,’ said Ahmed, who wrote and starred in the film.

“This is for everyone who feels like they’re stuck in No Man’s Land,” Ahmed said while accepting the Oscar. acceptance “You’re not alone. We’ll meet you there. That's where the future is. Peace."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Sunday, March 27, 2022

OSCARS: Hollywood struggles to overcome the white, male perspective



Of the 20 nominations for Oscar's major acting awards this year, not a single one is an AANHPI actor. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

As America eagerly views the Academy Awards tonight (March 27), Hollywood appears to find it hard to swallow that the today's audience is not the same audience of the last century. Two new studies found that people of color helped keep the movie industry afloat during the pandemic even as the Oscar's acting categories showed a lack of diversity in casting their products, according to studies from two L.A.-based universities, UCLA and USC.

A large percentage of the movie business’s box office revenue and home viewership was driven by consumers of color in 2021, according to UCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report. The report examines the 252 top-performing English-language films — based on box office receipts and streaming data — during the second year that the COVID-19 pandemic forced movie studios to adopt unconventional release strategies. 

The coronavirus pandemic upended the theatrical film market in 2020 and 2021, but despite the industry upheaval, a new report shows that at least a few things haven’t changed in popular films: It's still a White man's world.

At the same time, the movie-making capitol of the world is stuck in the mud in producing films with characters that look like the majority of moviegoers. 

“We cannot underestimate the positive impact the 32 movies with leads and co-leads of color released in 2021 can have on young audiences of color,” said Katherine L. Neff, lead author of a research brief entitled "Inequality in 1,500 Popular Films" out of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

“To be able to see yourself on screen, and to see yourself and people that look like you as the hero or leader in a variety of different films was not an option when I was younger. People of color deserve to be at the heart of storytelling.”

Of the 100 top films in 2021, according to the USC report, only 32% featured an underrepresented lead/co lead. This figure is slightly higher than 2020 when only 28% of movies had a lead/co lead of color. 

2021 findings are still notably below proportional representation, as people of color make up 40% of the U.S. population. The 32 movies depicted a total of 34 non-white leads/co leads. 

  • 32.3% (or 11) of the leads/co leads were Asian, 
  • 32.3% (11) were Black, 
  • 8.8% (3) were Hispanic/Latino, 
  • 2.9% (1) were Middle Eastern/North African, and 
  • 23.5% (8) were Multiracial/Multiethnic
That's sparse pickings and might be one of the reasons there are no AAPI actors nominated for an Academy Award considering the hundreds of films made and distributed by Hollywood studios and independents.

To increase the likelihood for AANHPI actors receive more accolades such as the Oscars, the actors have to be given substantial roles in which they can shine beyond the martial artist, good friend, wise mentor or comic relief. And there needs to more of them, not just one or two projects that stand out above the rest. Hollywood movie makers need to offer a wider choice of films besides the kung fu superheroes, computer nerds and math wizards offered to audiences.

Not that outstanding performances can come out of such characterizations or stereotypical genre. There just hasn't been any, thus far.

'Drive My Car' is Oscar contender

This year, there is no Crazy Rich Asians, Minari or The Farewell that the AAPI fans can hang their hopes to in the Oscar races.

Drive My Car, which is deservedly nominated for Best Picture and Best Foreign Feature, is, alas, a Japanese film, not an American movie. It stars Japanese actors, not Japanese Americans. 

Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon, which takes place in  a fictional Southeast Asian country and features a voice cast of actors of Asian descent including Daniel Dae Kim, Gemma Chan, Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina, is up for Best Animated Feature.

In 2020, Parasite won a slew of awards including Best Picture and Best Director, but that groundbreaking movie was from South Korea.

In 2021, Best Picture and Best Director went to Nomadland, an American film directed by Chloe Zhao, who had to reaffirm her Chinese citizenship to assuage her critics in her homeland.

The UCLA report’s authors noted that 2021 was the first year since they began tracking such statistics that the majority of Academy Awards went to films that were directed by people of color and featured minority actors in lead roles. And the year’s third highest-grossing film at the box office was F9: The Fast Saga, which featured a cast that was more than 50% minority and was directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Justin Lin. Sixty-five percent of opening weekend ticket sales for “F9” were to minority audiences, the highest figure among all films in the top 10.

“Last year, every time a big movie exceeded expectations or broke a box office record, the majority of opening weekend audiences were people of color,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, a co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement for the UCLA College division of social sciences. “For people of color, and especially Latino families, theaters provided an excursion when almost everything else was shut down. In a sense, people of color kept studios afloat the past couple of years.

“Studios should consider them to be investors, and as investors, they should get a return in the form of representation,” continues the UCLA study.

Overall, 43.1% of actors in the movies analyzed by the report were minorities. That’s more than double the percentage from 2011, the first year of data collected by the authors, when 20.7% of actors were minorities. And 31.0% of the top-performing films in 2021 had casts in which the majority of the actors were minorities.

“Minorities reached proportionate representation in 2020 for the first time when it comes to overall cast diversity in films, and that held true again in 2021,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the social sciences at UCLA and co-author of the report.

Hunt said the phenomenon is probably due in part to the greater number of movies that are initially released on streaming services: Of the films analyzed in the report, 45.6% were released on streaming services only.

“We do think this dual-release strategy is here to stay,” Hunt said. “And it could have a lasting impact on diversity metrics in front of and behind the camera as studios think about how to finance content for different platforms.”

For example, the report found that women and people of color were far more likely than white men to direct films with budgets less than $20 million.

“A small production budget usually means that there is also little to no marketing and studio support, unless it’s from a production company known for making art house films,” Ramón said. “And that makes it more difficult for filmmakers to get the next opportunity if their films have to fight for attention.”

Hunt said studios are likely to bank on big-budget tentpole movies and sequels as traditional box office drivers, even as they continue to experiment with release platforms and adjust the amount of time between films’ theatrical releases and their arrival on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray.

Among the 2021 films released to streaming services, those with casts in which a majority of actors were non-white enjoyed the highest ratings among viewers aged 18 to 49 and in Black households. Seventy-two films with majority-minority casts were released on streaming in 2021, including Raya and the Last Dragon, Coming 2 America, Vivo and Mortal Kombat.



“In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color,” Ramón said. “They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white lead actors. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films. For women of color, directing and writing opportunities are really the final frontier.”

Of the filmmakers who directed the movies analyzed in the report, 21.8% were women and 30.2% were people of color. Among the screenwriters for those films, 33.5% were women and 32.3% were people of color. Diversity in both jobs increased incrementally from 2020.

Out of the 76 minority directors of 2021’s top films, just 23 were women. And among Black, Latino and multiracial directors, at least twice as many were men as women in each racial or ethnic classification.

Although there was gender parity among Asian American and Native American directors, the overall numbers of directors from those groups were very small: just 17 Asian American directors and and just two Native American directors were represented in 2021. Among white directors, 32 were women and 143 were men, says the UCLA study.

Gender bias clearly evident

Across town, the USC brief also concluded that although the number of popular films with female and underrepresented leads has not significantly declined from 2019, there is still room for growth.

"To encourage continued change, one important factor that must be countered is the notion that economic 'risk' is tied to identity," says the USC study.

As USC's previous studies indicate, the presence of a girl/woman in a lead/co lead role does not significantly impact domestic or international revenue. 

Films with underrepresented leads/co leads may actually earn more money domestically than films with only white leads.7 Yet as the data reveal, even if companies are aware that they may not lose money by being inclusive, they have not fully embraced inclusion either. 

In the same study, there were differences in the size of production budgets, amount of marketing spend, and distribution density, such that movies with female and underrepresented leads/co leads were given less support in these critical areas than movies with white or male leads. In other words, the perception of economic “risk” tied to identity guides decision-making about who can lead a film. 

To solve this problem, companies and producers must critically examine the resources given to films with women and underrepresented leads– and women of color in leading roles in particular. Then, companies must level the field by ensuring that the movies starring women and people of color are not systematically disadvantaged through the allotment of budgets, marketing, or in the distribution process. 

At each stage of the green light and budget trajectory, executives must seek to decouple “risk” from identity and assess whether the questions they ask themselves to gauge “risk” for films with women and underrepresented leads are the same they pose about white male-driven movies. 

The UCLA and the USC studies, released days apart, reinforced their separate findings.

The authors of the UCLA study noted that 2021 was the first year since they began tracking such statistics that the majority of Academy Awards went to films that were directed by people of color and featured minority actors in lead roles. And the year’s third highest-grossing film at the box office was “F9: The Fast Saga,” which featured a cast that was more than 50% minority and was directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Justin Lin. Sixty-five percent of opening weekend ticket sales for “F9” were to minority audiences, the highest figure among all films in the top 10.

The report tracks the numbers of writers, directors and actors who identify as Asian American, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern/North African, multiracial and Native American. People in those groups make up 42.7% of the U.S. population, and they form an important consumer bloc for entertainment, including movies. 

Diversity in casting results in box office success

For six of the 10 top-grossing films that opened in theaters in 2021, people of color accounted for the majority of opening-weekend U.S. ticket sales. 

The UCLA report also analyzed box office performance based on the diversity of the movies’ casts — whether minority actors made up less than 11% of the cast, 11% to 20%, and so on, up to 51% or more. The study revealed that films with 21% to 30% minority actors had higher median global box office receipts than films in any other tier. That echoed a pattern since the report began tracking box office performance in 2011.

The UCLA report also found that, as in previous years, films with the least diverse casts (11% or less minority) were the poorest performers at the box office. 

“Last year, every time a big movie exceeded expectations or broke a box office record, the majority of opening weekend audiences were people of color,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, a co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement for the UCLA College division of social sciences. “For people of color, and especially Latino families, theaters provided an excursion when almost everything else was shut down. In a sense, people of color kept studios afloat the past couple of years.

“Studios should consider them to be investors, and as investors, they should get a return in the form of representation.”

Overall, 43.1% of actors in the movies analyzed by the report were minorities. That’s more than double the percentage from 2011, the first year of data collected by the authors, when 20.7% of actors were minorities. And 31.0% of the top-performing films in 2021 had casts in which the majority of the actors were minorities.

“Minorities reached proportionate representation in 2020 for the first time when it comes to overall cast diversity in films, and that held true again in 2021,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the social sciences at UCLA and co-author of the report.



Hunt said the phenomenon is probably due in part to the greater number of movies that are initially released on streaming services: Of the films analyzed in the UCLA report, 45.6% were released on streaming services only.

“We do think this dual-release strategy is here to stay,” Hunt said. “And it could have a lasting impact on diversity metrics in front of and behind the camera as studios think about how to finance content for different platforms.”

For example, the report found that women and people of color were far more likely than white men to direct films with budgets less than $20 million.

“A small production budget usually means that there is also little to no marketing and studio support, unless it’s from a production company known for making art house films,” Ramón said. “And that makes it more difficult for filmmakers to get the next opportunity if their films have to fight for attention.”

Hunt said studios are likely to bank on big-budget tentpole movies and sequels as traditional box office drivers, even as they continue to experiment with release platforms and adjust the amount of time between films’ theatrical releases and their arrival on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray.

Among the 2021 films released to streaming services, those with casts in which a majority of actors were non-white enjoyed the highest ratings among viewers aged 18 to 49 and in Black households. Seventy-two films with majority-minority casts were released on streaming in 2021, including “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Coming 2 America,” “Vivo” and “Mortal Kombat.”

“In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color,” Ramón said. “They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white lead actors. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films,” reports the UCLA study.

By the numbers

Other takeaways from the UCLA report:
  • Films written or directed by people of color in 2021 had significantly more diverse casts than those written or directed by white men.
  • Asian American people made up 5.6% of lead actors, 6.4% of overall cast, 6.7% of directors and 4.0% of writers.
  • Black actors held 15.5% of lead actor roles and 18% of overall acting roles, as well as 9.5% of directors and 10.4% of writers. For comparison, Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population.
  • Latinos held just 7.1% of lead acting roles, 7.7% of overall acting roles, 5.6% of writers and 7.1% of directors. Latinos represent 18.7% of the U.S. population.
  • There were no lead actors of Middle Eastern and North African descent in the films analyzed.
  • Native Americans remain virtually invisible in Hollywood, making up less than 1% of each job category in the study.
  • Women made up 47.2% of lead acting roles, nearly double the 2011 percentage, which was 25.6%.
The Oscars will be held on March 27, 2022, at 5 p.m., PDT and air on ABC. The ceremony will take place at the Dolby Theatre, located in Los Angeles,

Hollywood, like the rest of the nation, is still stumbling around trying to wrestle its way out of the quagmire of race and representation. It is a struggle that is evolving and necessary in order for the "soft power" Hollywood spreads across the world -- albeit in pursuit of profits -- to reflect the emerging America.


EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. 

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Georgia's AAPI community groups have received little government support since the Atlanta shootings



By Natasha Ishak 
Reprinted from Prism.com

A year has passed since the Atlanta shootings left the city’s Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities reeling after a gunman attacked multiple Asian-owned businesses, killing eight people during his rampage, the majority of whom were Asian women of Korean and Chinese descent. The tragedy was a watershed moment for the nation, accentuating anti-Asian violence that had increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic but which had gone largely ignored by news media up until that point. 

Despite the initial outpouring of consolation gestures and promises by local officials to protect Atlanta’s Asian populations, organizers say little support has materialized or been provided over the past year. 

“During the time of the spa shootings, we saw this invigoration of elected officials wanting to talk with us and engage us and bring us into the conversation when it comes to racism and violence against the AAPI community,” said Suraiya Sharker, organizing director of the Georgia Muslim Voter Project (GMVP) who has been involved with multiple community groups serving AAPI-identifying individuals. “But there hasn’t been much tangible change, at least not on the statewide level, that we’ve seen.” 

Some organizers described the Atlanta shootings as a “wake-up call” not only for non-Asians but also for those serving the community. According to Alnory Gutlay, who serves as vice president of health equity and access at Atlanta’s Center for Pan Asian Community Service (CPACS), the lack of a coordinated response in the immediate aftermath of the shootings left community members vulnerable in a time of extreme need.

“What we found was when last year happened, the community panicked,” said Gutlay. 

The frenzied conditions following the attacks exposed the need for a stronger crisis response from Atlanta’s existing AAPI organizations. As a result, CPACS, which works primarily with refugees and immigrants, mobilized to create Stop AAPI Hate, a multilingual crisis resource and campaign funded through donations the organization received after the shootings. 

The majority of engagement and support AAPI residents did receive in the aftermath largely came from community organizations already serving Atlanta’s AAPI communities, not from local officials. Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood, executive director of the Asian American Advocacy Fund in Georgia, says marginalized communities have always had to rely on community organizations as vital support sources, particularly in the South. 

“Especially in a place like Georgia, where we have not historically had community services that cater to people who speak different languages, people who have different sorts of cultural or religious backgrounds,” Mahmood said, “I think community organizations have had to carry most of the burden over this past year.” 

Among the community-driven support systems borne from the Atlanta tragedy is the AAPI Crime Victims and Education Fund, a fundraising initiative to provide financial support to those who identify as AAPI and have been victimized in race-based crimes. The fund is also meant to support educational and awareness programs aimed at reducing racialized violence against the community. As the first fund to provide support for AAPI-identifying crime victims, the resource was launched by a group of Asian lawyers in Atlanta with support from legal organizations like the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Korean-American Bar Association of Georgia. 

According to the fund’s website, AAPI organizations receive a disproportionately low amount of funding. Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, a national philanthropy group, states that only 0.2%, or 20 cents for every $100, of grants nationwide went to serving AAPI-focused causes in 2018, even though AAPI make up 7% of the U.S. population as of 2020 and are the fastest-growing minority group in the country. 

That lack of established support for AAPI organizations extends to education efforts, which in turn can influence how AAPI individuals are perceived by people outside of these communities.

“I think a big part of the anti-Asian sentiment and violence has been that people don’t understand where our communities have come from,” said Mahmood. “They don’t understand the history of Asian Americans in this country.”

Mahmood noted that educational awareness is crucial in places like Georgia where there may not be a well-known history of Asian populations, compared to states like California. Mahmood says her organization is pushing to build local support for an in-depth ethnic studies curriculum to be taught in Georgia’s schools, among other efforts.

But discriminatory violence against AAPI goes beyond racism, particularly for women and femmes. To Gutlay and her CPACS team, which serves a clientele that includes domestic violence victims, the Atlanta attacks were clearly a form of racial and gendered violence. 

“For us, it’s like this has been happening in our community,” said Gutlay. “It was just … there was no focus on it prior.”

Gender-based violence against AAPI women and femmes is seldom talked about even as they are racially profiled and, as a result, often hypersexualized. A 2017 report by the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence found that 23% of Asian and Pacific Islander women have experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime while 21% have encountered non-contact unwanted sexual experiences, which refers to harassment without touching or penetration, such as someone exposing their sexual body parts or masturbating in front of the victim. 

In the aftermath of the Atlanta shootings, many experts pointed to link between the historical fetishization of AAPI women and femmes and the misogynistic violence they are subjected to. The shootings, together with the pandemic’s racialized violence against AAPI women and femmes—including the highly publicized murders of Michelle Go and Christina Yuna Lee earlier this year—have amplified the need for nuanced conversations around anti-Asian racism. 

During the pandemic, East Asian women and femmes were the most likely victims of anti-Asian hate, with 67.6% of reported hate incidents against AAPI women experienced by East Asian women, according to a joint report by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum and the Stop AAPI Hate coalition. The coalition is separate from the campaign under CPACS, but the two entities work together as part of a national movement on Stop AAPI Hate.

“I don’t think there’s been enough work happening around economic justice for AAPI women [who] I’ve seen, particularly for AAPI women who are (low-wage) professionals,” said Sharker of the Georgia Muslim Voter Project. “I think overall, there needs to be more work done when it comes to that economic justice piece.”

Beyond expanding educational outreach, organizations are looking for more governmental support and funding to provide language-accessible trauma-informed services for Atlanta’s AAPI communities, a key support piece that is still severely lacking. 

“There’s definitely a lack of access for mental health services, especially in language services for our community members,” said Gutlay of CPACS, which provides services in 18 different languages. “Even in-house we speak so many [languages] and it’s because ‘Asian,’ if you break it down by ethnicity, is a much bigger group.”

Despite the lack of support, AAPI community organizations in Atlanta will continue to serve residents as best they can, long after the memory of the tragic shootings has faded from national attention. Mahmood says she doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

“I think that until we really get the right people in office, I don’t know that we’ll be able to really have an expectation that local or state governments will be able to provide these sorts of resources,” she said.


Friday, March 25, 2022

New bill may help collecting hate crime data in California

OFFICE OF ASSEMBLYMEMBER PHIL TING
California Assemblymember Phil Ting hopes to standardize reporting of hate crimes.

There were 882 hate crimes based on race or ethnicity in California in 2021, a number law enforcement acknowledges is likely an undercount.

"We're in a full-on state of crisis, state of emergency when it comes to hate crimes and hate violence," said Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Bonta said hate crimes against Asians in California jumped 107% from 2019 to 2020.

As the number of hate crimes rise across California, San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, who represents Parts of San Mateo County and San Francisco, introduced AB1947, the "Hate Crimes Bill," that wold institute more clear definitions and responses to hate incidents.

AB 1947 was inspired after a surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. But the legislation would apply to all races, religions, disabilities, genders, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics.

The bill has already passed the committee, and would require California law enforcement agencies to adopt a 'hate crimes policy' for the Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training. It would also standardize the definition of a hate crime and obligate law enforcement to file their hate crime policies with the Department of Justice. Presently, reporting hate crimes is not required by the State.

"Right now we have problems with reporting hate crimes and also getting hate crime data. Many times a crime will occur and it doesn't get classified as a hate crime," Ting said.

It would also give more accurate numbers. In 2018, the state auditor found law enforcement agencies under-reported hate crimes due to outdated or non-existent policies.

According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism shows large increases in anti-AAPI hate crimes. San Francisco has seen a 576% increase, while Los Angeles has experienced a 173% increase.

"This has to end," wrote Tin in an op-ed. "Crimes motivated by hate are not just attacks on innocent individuals, but also on our communities. Strength and more consistency in the handling of such crimes sends a message that hate will not be tolerated.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.