Sunday Read: With movie theaters shuttered, online and streaming fill the gap for Asian American programming

With the coronavirus rescheduling all the premieres and launches of Hollywood products, it looks like Asian March which initially had five Asian or Asian American projects debut on television or the theaters, has extended into May for an Asian Spring.

Netflix is now offering three promising AAPI projects, one of which is streaming right now, two that will premiere May 1, kicking off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

The big change was delaying the general release of the live-action Mulan to later this summer. With the shelter-in-place mandates in the US and China, the blockbuster with an international cast of Asians and Asian Americans, would have failed miserably if it opened on the original March date.

Tigertail, streaming on Netflix

The big premiere in April was Tigertail, which opened April 7. Alan Yang's tale of immigration is loosely based on his father's journey to the US. The movie is just over an hour and a half and I wish it could have gone on for at least another hour to flesh out subtleties Yang offered in the stunningly beautiful film.

Much like the Chinese or Japanese scrolls depicting landscapes surrounded by empty space, a lot of Tigertail's power lies in those empty spaces, the closeup of the father's face as he seeks to forces his facial muscles to tighten in order to hide the emotions he dares not reveal, the silences between father and daughter that speaks volumes about the lifetime of tension between them.

This allows the viewer to fill in the spaces with their own experiences and emotions.  Perhaps this is why the film has had mixed reviews: Asian reviewers almost universally love the film but white reviewers just see emptiness and the missing parts of the story.

Receiving less press but perhaps more accessible to the non-Asian audience is the romcom The Half of It and Mindy Kaling's coming-of-age series Never Have I Ever.

A scene from 'Tigertail,' an Asian American story.

Ghost in A Shell 2045, streaming on Netflix 

Scarlett Johansson will not be in this latest iteration of the Ghost in A Shell. For the uninitiated, Ghost in the Shell is a long-running anime franchise that began its life as a cyberpunk manga in 1989, following a cyborg named Major Motoko Kusanagi who worked in a counter-cyberterrorist organization called Public Security Section 9. Notoriously, Paramount’s live-action adaptation of the story sparked controversy over the casting of Johansson as Major Motoko Kusanagi, clearly a Japanese character in the animated story. Hopefully, this new story will be just the thing for fans to put that recent film firmly in the dustbin of awful mistakes.

To call Netflix’s visual take on Ghost in the Shell different would be an understatement. The animated series has gotten a full makeover in the form of CGI that looks more suited to a Pixar film or a video game; it’s a beautiful, albeit drastic, change from the drawn animation most fans have come to know. In the first full trailer for Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, which is set to arrive this April, Netflix offers a full look at the cast, from Major to Batou.

Never Have I Ever, May 1, Netflix

Never Have I Ever is an upcoming Netflix Original coming-of-age comedy series co-created and written by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher based on Kaling's youth in Massachusetts. After a nationwide casting call, newcomer Maitreyi Ramakrishnan was picked to play the lead.

This will be the first Netflix Original series produced by Kaling, who has previously worked as a writer and executive producer on The Office, and Fisher who has served as a writer on award-winning shows such as 30 Rock, The Mindy Project and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

'Never Have I Ever' is a coming-of-age story from an Indian American point of view.

The Half of It, Netflix, May 1

The Half of It is a movie that will begin streaming on May 1 to kick off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

The feature flick is like a Cyrano de Bergerac situation with a modern-day twist. If To All the Boys I Ever Loved, a Netflix hit that was part of 2018's Asian August, was a teen romance fantasy, The Half of It presents a situation closer to the confusing, questioning reality faced by most Asian American teenagers.

Leah Louis plays Ellie Chu, a friendless and shy straight-A student who runs a business in school, making money off the students who want her to do their homework. She receives an unusual request from one of the jocks, Paul, to help him write a letter to Aster Flores, the girl he loves. The unlikely pair strike up a friendship, but it becomes extremely complicated when Ellie finds herself falling for Aster too.

Asian Americans, PBS, May 11 & 12

On May 11 & May 12, 2020 PBS will premiere Asian Americans, a five-hour film series that will chronicle the contributions, and challenges of Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic group in America. Personal histories and new academic research will cast a fresh lens on US history and the role Asian Americans have played in it.

Led by a team of Asian American filmmakers, including Academy Award®-nominated series producer Renee Tajima-Peña (Who Killed Vincent Chin?, No Más Bebés), Asian Americans examines the significant role of Asian Americans in shaping American history and identity, from the first wave of Asian immigrants in the 1850s and identity politics during the social and cultural turmoil of the 20th century to modern refugee crises in a globally connected world.

“These are American stories: stories of resilience in the face of racism, of overcoming challenges as refugees from war and strife, of making contributions in all sectors of society: business, technology, military service, and the arts,” said Stephen Gong, Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media. 

Unladylike 2020, PBS, May 13

This series tells the stories of little known women who have had a big impact on the US. On May 13, the 1-hour epsode is about Tye Leung Schulze (1887–1972), the youngest daughter of low-income immigrants from China, escaped from domestic servitude at age nine and an arranged marriage at age 12. She began her career translating for victims of human trafficking in San Francisco’s Chinatown working for Donldina Cameron’s Presbyterian Mission Home. In 1910, she became the first Chinese American woman to work for the federal government, as assistant matron and an interpreter at the Angel Island Immigration Station, a detention center designed to control the flow of Asian immigrants into the US under the Chinese Exclusion Act. While there, she fell in love with a white immigration inspector, Charles Schulze, and married him against both their parents’ wishes and California’s anti-miscegenation laws. In 1912, one year after California granted women the right to vote, Leung became the first Chinese American woman to vote in a US election.

Burden of Truth, CW, May 21

Kristin Kreuk is back with her series, Burden of Truth, on the CW network. The series centers on attorney Joanna Hanley (Kreuk), who walked away from her partnership at a corporate law firm in order to figure out why a mysterious illness was afflicting high school girls in her home town of Millwood, Manitoba. By the end of season one, Joanna was estranged from her dad and changed her last name to Chang — her mother’s maiden name. In season two, she has joined a Winnipeg firm, where a new client involves her in a case full of political and cyber intrigue.

One thing to keep in mind when going over these offerings, while the choices for AAPI to find subjects or characters relevant to themselves may seem plentiful, these represent only a teeny, tiny portion of the products put out by the Hollywood dream factory. AAPI themes and characters are still woefully under-represented in the output coming from Toronto, Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles, centers for video and film productions for North America.

The Lovebirds, Netflix, May 22

Any movie with Kumail Nanjiani is a must for me because, well, he's like Everyman for AAPI guys. And he makes me laugh. 

Add Issa Rae and you know this is going to be a movie with a lot of POC inside jokes to make a serious point about interracial relationships and social inequities but have you laughing at the same time. 

Rae and Nanjiani play a couple who experiences a defining moment in their relationship when they are unintentionally embroiled in a murder mystery. As their journey to clear their names takes them from one extreme – and hilarious - circumstance to the next, they must figure out how they, and their relationship, can survive the night.

Originally set for an April 3 general release by Paramount, the coronavirus crisis forced a delay and then the streaming giant Netflix settled on an exclusive online premiere.

PLUS ...

With Asian American film festivals cancelled around the country due to the coronavirus crisis, communities will depend more on programs on television and online offerings to observe Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May.

Local PBS-affiliated television stations, such as:

• KQED in San Francisco,
• KCET in Los Angeles, 
• WTTW in Chicago,
• WNET in New York,

have their own individual programming for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and they vary from station to station. Check your local listings for more information.

AANHPI Heritage Month:: The 8-year old Chinese American girl whose 1885 case led to the desegregation of U.S. schools

SMITH COLLECTION

The Tape family, including Mamie, second from left, circa 1884.

In September of 1884, 8-year-old Mamie Tape was ready to begin her studies at Spring Valley Primary School in San Francisco, but the principal refused to admit her because of her Chinese heritage. 

Little did the principle know the series of events that she started would lead to eventual desegregation of public schools. What is even more amazing is this drama was occurring when anti-Chinese sentiment was high. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882.

Mamie’s parents, who were affluent, fully assimilated middle-class immigrants, and well connected, decided to fight back in a suit against the Spring Valley School principal Jennie Hurley,  known as Tape v. Hurley.

The Tapes were well educated and not without political connections. They were part of household of Leland Stanford, one of the Big Four so-called  railroad "robber barons." The Stanfords, paid for the Tape's wedding, according to the obituary of Joseph Tape. By the time the Tapes filed their suit, Stanford, who was a U.S. Senator then, had endowed the university named after his son who died at age 15.

According to a  History article, the Tape case was one of the most significant civil rights decisions of all time. Even American-born Chinese students were denied access to public schools in San Francisco despite a California law that entitled all children a right to public education.

Because Mamie’s parents had lived in predominantly white communities for so long, it seemed only natural to send their child to nearest primary school. Tape v. Hurley had made it to the Supreme Court in March 1885. Yet, the court ruled against Mamie’s parents, stating that the “separate but equal” doctrine justified the segregation taking place.

In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was not unconstitutional as long as the facilities were equivalent in nature. Since the court did not find any significant differences between schools, it did not find merit in the discriminatory claim.

Furious with the injustice, Mamie’s mother, Mary, wrote a letter to the Alta California newspaper. Highlighted in a San Francisco Chronicle article, Mary Tape’s letter furiously asks, “Is it a disgrace to be born a Chinese?”

READ the entire letter written by Mary Tape.

Tape’s letter did not help Mary’s daughter. Nonetheless, the outcome was still a triumph for the Chinese American community because of the public outcry at the injustice of the decision. 

Five days after her letter was published, the school district opened the Chinese Primary School in Chinatown. Later, more Chinese enrolled at other public schools and fewer complaints came from white parents.

The separate but equal doctrine would finally be repealed in 1947, seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation was unconstitutional.

Mamie and her siblings were among the first students to enroll in the Chinese Primary School in San Francisco's Chinatown. 

Ten years later, the Tapes moved across the Bay to Berkeley, where schools were integrated and, unlike San Francisco's racist real estate practices, Chinese were allowed to buy homes.

In the East Bay, the Tape family continued to make history. The Tape's immigrant story is a quintessential story of America. Mary gained a reputation as an outstanding photographer  and painter and Joseph, who worked for Southern Pacific Railroad, continued to engage in civic affairs and was one of the founders of the Knox Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, across the street where the Tapes lived.

Read more about the Tapes of Russell Steet here.

AsAm News contributed to this article. 

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

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In Memoriam: The Fiiipino American veterans who raised us

OPINION

Memorial Day -- I remember the small group of Filipino American veterans who helped raise me. 

They came to California after World War II as young men, full of hope and optimism. They didn't know each other in the Philippines but here, they banded together sharing their experiences and supporting each other. Some brought their wives and families. 

They have all passed away. The last veteran died three years ago and buried in his uniform. They were not perfect. Some suffered from what we now call PTSD. Some never fully adjusted to this country. Some drank too much. At least one went amok (ironically, a Filipino word) that has become part of America's vocabulary.

They made up the so-called Second Wave of Filipino immigrants, squeezed between the farmworkers and those who came to the U.S. after the 1965 Immigration Reform Act replaced the immigration policy that gave preference to Europeans..

RELATED: Unsung heroes: My dad, the Major

However, the Filipino American veterans were survivors in more ways than one. They were:

• Brave to have fought and survived several wars on behalf of the U.S. Armed Forces, including World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War;
• Patriotic -- almost to a fault -- and believed fervently in the US of A even as they were denied home ownership in certain neighborhoods;
• Courageous to choose to leave family and country they knew so well to venture to the unknown, to a new culture, a new community;
• Persistent in believing the American Dream despite suffering the slings of discrimination and broken promises of citizenship and military benefits for some of them; and
• Patient, as their children became more Americanized and flouted the traditions of the old country.

There's a bronze plaque with the names of the survivors of Bataan and Corrigidor at the Veterans Memorial in a small town in California where they established roots, raised their families and formed the nucleus of  a community. Every family knew every family and knew the children by name. None of us kids got away with anything with our greater community family of uncles and aunts watching over us.

We remain indebted to that generation of fathers, grandfathers and uncles -- and their wives who put up for so much and were often left to raise their families on their own as the menfolk went to war. That generation paved the way for us. 

The Filipino American veterans were shorter in stature than most Americans, but as time goes by, they are remembered as giants. They had brown skin and most spoke with a heavy accent, but in many ways, they were more American than those who were born here.

They may have passed away but their family names remain around town. Their descendants are teachers, civil servants, doctors, lawyers, journalists, artists and entrepreneurs. Many joined one of the branches of the U.S. Armed Services and some gave their lives for our country. The WWII veterans' children, their children's children and their great, great grandchildren have grown and mostly prospered. They are the veterans' legacy. 

Hopefully, we made them proud.  

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

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Recognition eludes Filipina American sports legend Vicky Manalo

Vicky Manalo and her friend and fellow gold medal diver Sammy Lee at the London Olympics

Its a downright shame that Victoria Manalo Draves has not received the honor and recognition as a sports trailblazer in her own hometown of San Francisco.

The Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame awards were handed out May 2 and once again, Draves name was not on the list of inductees.

The closest she came was in 2015 when she was nominated but for some unknown  reason, didn't make the final cut. The closest she got was in 2015 when she received a nomination but for some unknown reason, Draves didn't make the final list.

Draves has a park named after her in the South-of-Market (SoMa) neighborhood where she grew up and a few blocks away she is depicted in a mural celebrating Filipino American heroes, but she has not been inducted in the San Francisco Sports Hall of Fame.

She was included in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969 joining her friend Sammy Lee, the first Asian American man to win a gold medal.

She trained and competed as Vicky Manalo at the insistence of her then-coach, later to become her husband, Lyle Draves, despite several training facilities denying her use for training because she was Filipino. 

Draves was the first Asian American to win an Olympic Gold Medal in her sport of diving at the 1948 Olympics held in London. She won the 3-meter springboard diving competition and later, she became the first American woman to win two gold medals in the Olympics when she also won first place in 9-meter platform competition.

She later turned down offers from Hollywood instead choosing to perform in the Aquacades. She and her husband later opened a school for divers in Southern California.

She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969 and there's a drive to get her into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame being built in Colorado  that is being led by her grandson, Nolan Lyle Draves.

We will have to wait until the 2019 finalists are announced on Aug. 12, to see if Draves made the cut. After the fanilists are named, the voting window for Team USA fans will open. Members of the public will be able to vote once per day through Sept. 3. Recognizing the ongoing support that fans give U.S. Olympians, Paralympians and hopefuls in their training and competition, the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame was one of the first major sports hall of fames to incorporate fan voting into the selection process.

The U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, class of 2019, will be announced in late September, and inducted on Friday, Nov. 1, during an induction ceremony in conjunction with the all-alumni U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team Reunion in Colorado Springs.

Opening in early 2020, the U.S. Olympic Museum in Colorado Springs, Colo., will become the new permanent home for the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

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Meet NASA's AAPI astronauts, engineers, space station commanders and other employees

Just in time for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, NASA has created a fantastic website featuring the scores of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who are working or have worked with the agency. in every capacity,  from astronauts, flight directors, engineers and more.

It includes the first Asian American into space, astronaut Ellison Onizuka, and mission specialist Daniel M. Tani, who is currently on the international space station.

The number of AAPI working at the space agency might not surprise a lot of people but they are a reminder at how much immigrants and the children of immigrants continue to contribute to this country's next great adventure. 

Click here to get to the NASA website.

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85% of Asian Americans come from six countries

After receiving criticism for not including Asians and Asian Americans in their examination of ethnic groups in the United States, the Pew Research Center has done its best to rectify that shortcoming.

The latest report, released to coincide with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, from Pew shows that 85% of all the 22 million Asian Americans are made up from six countries. The rest of the percentile pile, about 13%, is shared by at least 13 other origen groups.

According to Pew, Chinese Americans still make up the largest group with 23%. They are followed by the fastest-growing group, Indian Americans with 19%; closely followed by Filipinos, 28%; Vietnamese and Koreans, 9% each; and Japanese, 7%

Other findings based on an analysis of the US Census:

• About half of Asians in the U.S. ages 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or more in 2015, ahigher share than other races and ethnicities, but this share varies greatly by origin group
• Seven-in-ten U.S. Asians ages 5 and older speak English proficiently. 
• Income inequality is rising more rapidly among Asian Americans than other racial or ethnic groups, reflecting wide disparities in income among Asian origin groups.

When the Pew Research Center omitted Asian American data in its initiial report in 2010 because the Asian Americans, when compared to whites, blacks and Hispanics, was statistically insignificant, it received an onslaught of criticism from the Asian American community.

In an effort to rectify their omission, in 2012, Pew released a follow-up report, "The Rise of Asian Americans," it again was heavily criticized for painting Asian Americans as the "model minority." A revised report was released in 2013. Subsequent follow-ups to the follow-up continue to this day with researchers taking more care in its interpretation of the raw data that they glean about Asian Americans.

For more information on Asians in the U.S., see Pew Research Center’s detailed fact sheets for each national origin group.

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Chloe Kim struggling with being a celebrity

SCREEN CAPTURE / ESPN

For Olympian Chloe Kim, being in the spotlight isn't all that glamorous.

ASAM NEWS

Chloe Kim made international headlines on the halfpipe at PyeongChang 2018 when she became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal at 17-years old but with the glory came the tremendous pressure to "represent" Asian Americans. 
“Every time I’m stepping outside, I have to make sure I’m putting my best foot forward,” Kim told espnW. “That’s hard sometimes. I ask people not to be so harsh. It has even affected my family. My mom’s doing this knitting class and said she has to be careful, she’s worried she might say something weird. We’re working on it as a collective.”

ESPEN interviewed Kim in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) to discuss success and growing up in the spotlight.

Kim made sure to thank her family for her successes and continues to be grateful for them. Her parents instilled in her a drive to work hard for success since she was young.

“My dad never quit or let me give up or anything like that,” said Kim. “I just like what I do, it was never hard to motivate myself. I always wanted to do more. If I didn’t like what I did, I’d be miserable in the mountains. I do what I do solely because I love it, and that’s all the motivation you need.”

All that hard work has brought her an Olympic gold medal and national fame, but that fame means little rest in the public eye.

“Sometimes when we go and eat, we have a strategic way of sitting at the table so that no one can see me,” said Kim. “I don’t want to sound like a brat who says she hates her fans, I love my fans. Sometimes though I just want to be left alone. I’m so anxious about what I’m saying, what I’m wearing, or what I look like. It can be really hard.

“I’m working on accepting that that’s my life now. It’s always going to be like that, I’m always going to be judged. Sometimes I’m like, ‘damn, I wish I didn’t tweet about churros that one time.'”

Kim spoke about her experiences as one of the few Asian Americans on the slopes as part of a campaign with Panda Express for APAHM.

As for defining success outside of snowboarding, Kim claims she’s the worst person to ask.

“I haven’t found it yet. I’m going to college. I’m going to see what I can do with my life outside of snowboarding. I’ll have an answer for you in six years.”

Kim will be attending college at Princeton, where she hopes to major in a science, reports The New York Times.

“Even after I snowboard, I hope that my next career involves helping others,” Kim said in the Panda Express interview. “As long as I’m helping others, I’ll be very happy with my life.”

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