Fall is arriving. I can feel it in the cooler air. With a hot cup of coffee, I watch the squirrels blue jays burying birdseeds and the squirrels digging them up to hide them elsewhere.
This weekend, three articles not about politics caught my attention. Well -- maybe "politics" is involved, but in a different context than what's happening in Washington DC.
In my last year in college, I decided I wanted to write screenplays and produce movies. For the next few years, I failed miserably. Without the training, mentors nor the essential contacts I couldn't make despite being kicked out of all the major studios. Battering my head against a locked door was a lost cause.
So I turned to my first love, writing -- and became a journalist. But I still have a great interest in films and television as a secondary hobby of sorts. I'm thrilled that other AAPI were not so easily dissuaded from pursuing their own Hollywood dreams. There are now dozens of showrunners on TV, scores of actors and a handful of writers and directors who are keeping the door wedged open for more people to barge their way in.
Two of those people like Mindy Kaling and Nina Yang Bongiovi were featured in magazine articles last week.
My other hobby is cooking. I love t cook, so I really loved the article by Angela Dimayuga in the New York Times. 10 Essential Filipino Dishes is a must read.
Mindy Kaling didn't intend to become a role model. But her career path is a prime example of a woman of color succeeding in a field dominated by white men. She tells her story in Elle Magazine as part of its feature "Women in Hollywood."
As the one woman on the writing staff of The Office her experience was not as blatant as depicted in her movie Late Night, but there were still instances of bias. Of all the writers, she alone was asked to document her contributions to the show in order to qualify her for an Emmy nomination.
She is now taking on the role of producing more shows starring POC actors with a contract with Warner Bros. Her newest project is a coming of age story featuring an Indian American teenage girl . You can be sure her story will be far different young boy central to the Wonder Years.
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It's not an easy road being a Hollywood producer. (Read Mindy Kaling's story, above.) Just Ask Nina Yang Bongiovi. In an article from Deadline, she is ready to move into the Asian American genre.
It took 10 years learning the business and making mistakes including a stint in the Asian movie industry. a chance meeting with actor Forrest Whitaker and faith in a young, untested but talented filmmaker Ryan Coogler for Bongiovi to break through to do her first film, Fruitvale Station. That led to a series of movies with black themes and casts.
She has fended off criticism from Asian American craetives for not doing films about their communities. But she had been biding her time, waiting for the right moment. Crazy Rich Asians' critical success and box office appeal opened the door for the Bongiovi and Whitaker producing team.
The producer and actor recently signed a first-look deal with Amazon and isn’t wasting any time in developing Asian American as well as other multicultural narratives that are often erased from history. She is keeping many of the projects under wraps but she guarantees that she has a slate of projects that will have Asian Americans in front of and behind the camera.
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And lastly, I'm an amateur cook (not a "chef") who likes to putter around the kitchen and once in a while write about news of the day from an Asian American perspective I loved this article from the New York Times written by Angela Dimayuga.
Her article on 10 essential Filipino dishes in the NYTimes was a big shot in the arm, not only for her recipies but also for giving exposure for an often overlooked cuisine.
Dimayuga, "the creative director for food and culture at the Standard hotels and a former chef at Mission Chinese Food in New York, grew up in Northern California, a daughter of Filipino immigrants, her grandmother a scratch cook. When (the NYTimes) asked her recently for 10 recipes that speak to the heart of Filipino cuisine, she didn’t just cook from her own memory. She went through her mother’s collection of her family’s recipes and combed through cookbooks drawing on cooking from across the archipelago. She studied. And then she cooked and cooked."
The recipes she presents are a great launching point for us to add our own touches to make it our own.
