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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HBO names Asian Pacific American Visionaries

From left, Julie Zhan, Nirav Bhakta and So Young Shelly Yo.

The HBO network has selected filmmakers Julie Zhan, So Young Shelly Yo and Nirav Bhakta as finalists for the third annual Asian Pacific American Visionaries short film competition.
The competition adds to Hollywood’s changing landscape of inclusion and representation of marginalized voices by showcasing cinematic storytellers of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Zhan’s Zoetic, Yo’s Moonwalk With Me and Bhakta’s Halwa will premiere at the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, May 2-10.

“HBO is committed to uplifting the next generation of APA storytellers, talent and entertainment community at large,” said Jackie Gagne, VP Multicultural Marketing at HBO. “The recent surge in Asian American visibility is only the beginning and we hope this competition serves to continue this incredible momentum in Hollywood.”

“HBO Visionaries continues to provide a platform for the community to not only tell authentic stories, but shine a spotlight on all these amazing creatives,” adds Sujata Day, APA Visionaries 2019 Ambassador. “It’s exciting to see HBO’s investment in the community by giving emerging directors a chance to be in the limelight

The finalists were selected from hundreds of submissions and were judged by a distinguished panel of HBO executives, industry leaders and fellow APA filmmakers. The three winning films touched on the subject of developing relationships and its complexities through the modern Asian American lens.

Read more about the finalists and their films below.

Nirav Bhakta (Halwa) takes inspiration from his immigrant background to portray the challenges of the Asian diaspora. His films have been shown at film festivals around the world, including the prestigious UK Asian Film Festival. Halwa tells the story of an Indian woman who rekindles her relationship with a childhood sweetheart through Facebook messages, but her abusive husband takes notice. The film was co-directed by Gayatri Bajpai.

So Young Shelly Yo (Moonwalk With Me”) is a Korean American filmmaker living in Los Angeles. She recently graduated from Columbia University where she received her MFA for screenwriting and directing. She was selected to be part of the Alfred P. Sloan Mentorship Program and was a finalist for the Sloan Screenplay Grant in 2018. Moonwalk With Me is about a Korean American girl who is haunted by her father’s disappearances and tells the story of the immigrant experience through a magical landscape.

Julie Zhan (Zoetic) is a Chinese American actress and filmmaker who has been an impassioned advocate for diverse representation in the media. She has used digital media as a platform for her performances. She has garnered over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, ShutUpAndDance. Zoetic is a coming of age story about a single, 60-year old Chinese immigrant mother who is challenged to think of her own wants and needs. She reluctantly agrees to join an online dating app with the help of her daughter. Through the experience, they begin to break through the emotional wall between Asian parent and child. Zoetic was co-directed by Wesley Chan, a co-founder of popular Asian American production company Wong Fu Productions.